Genre: Memoir/Autobiography
Description:
The author describes his book this way.
“At the prompting of a marketing friend, I
was advised to title this book, My Intensely Madcap, Lebanese/Cajun, Jesuit-Schizoid,
Terminally Narcissistic, Food-Focused, East Coast/West Coast, Georgetown/Yale,
Career-Changing, Cross-Dressing, Runaway Catholic Italophile, Paradoxically
Dramatic, Linguistically Neurotic, Hollywood Academic, ADD-Overcompensating,
Niche-Abhorring, Jocoserious Obit. But when my designer pointed out that title
wouldn’t fit on the spine, much less on any public display list, I changed my
mind. Again! The story of my life.
Which this is at least the first volume of.
I hope it makes you laugh, spares you some of my grief, and leads you to insist
on telling your story to anyone who will listen.”
Author:
“Dr. Ken Atchity loves being a writer, producer, teacher, career
coach, and literary manager, responsible for launching hundreds of books and
films. His life's passion is finding great stories and storytellers and turning
them into bestselling authors and screenwriters--and making films which send
their stories around the world.
His books include, most recently, novels The Messiah Matrix and
Seven Ways to Die (with William Diehl) and nonfiction books for writers
at every stage of their career. Based on his teaching, managing, and writing
experience, he's successfully built bestselling careers for novelists,
nonfiction writers, and screenwriters from the ground up.
Atchity has also produced 30 films, including Hysteria (Maggie
Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy), The Expatriate (Aaron Eckhart), The Lost
Valentine (Betty White), Gospel Hill (Danny Glover), Joe Somebody
(Tim Allen), Life or Something Like It (Angelina Jolie), The Amityville
Horror: The Evil Escapes, Shadow of Obsession (Veronica Hammel), The
Madam's Family (Ellen Burstyn).”
Appraisal:
Memoirs are an interesting beast. Some I’ve read have been people who
I have a lot in common with, growing up in the same environment geographically
and culturally, where I find myself comparing our respective life experiences
and how we viewed them, sometimes adjusting how I view some things in subtle
ways or feeling validated that the author and I are in agreement. Other times
the memoirist and I have nothing obvious in common, yet I realize in
contrasting our different lives that there are still commonalities with
everyone that are part of the generic human experience. These can also help me
understand people not like me, which has obvious benefits.
This memoir, billed as volume 1 of Kenneth Atchity’s autobiography,
fell somewhere in the middle. I’ve written more than a few book reviews in my
time, but never for the big publications that Atchity has. I’ve made a few career
or life decisions that were outside the norm, shaking things up with a purpose,
which Atchity does. But mostly his experiences were much different from mine, growing
up in a much different environment, in a different time, with a much different
relationship with his family from what I’ve experienced. He’s also risen to the
top of multiple fields, overcoming lots of challenges on the way, learning as
he goes, making mistakes, and learning still more from them. In the process of
learning about his life, I think I learned a bit more about myself, and maybe
picked up a few ideas to help guide me in the future based on the lessons he’s
learned from life thus far.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
So adult language.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: *****
Five Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 100-105,000 words
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