Macauley Culkin's new book - bad reviews and excerpts

[muchlove]

I guess this is the right forum for this?

MAC'S LI'L KOOK BOOK

January 22, 2006 -- Sure, the child star's had a rough life - but who knew he was 'Jacko' wacko

Macaulay Culkin doesn't speak to his estranged father, Kip. The two haven't exchanged a word since 1997.

There's a lot Culkin, now 25, wants to say to the controlling dad whose hubristic mismanagement derailed a movie career that once pulled in $8 million a picture.

So the former child star penned a cathartic stream-of-consciousness collection of journal entries, drawings, poems and letters called "Junior."

We've seen a reviewer's copy of the book, due to hit stores March 15, and it appears the former child star has spent way too much time home alone.

OK, Macaulay, spit it out. What's on your mind?



"Dear dad," he writes in one entry. "f- -k f- -k f- -k f- -k f- -k f- -k . . ." and on and on with saturation f-bombing for two pages.

What is this, a transcript of Mac's primal scream therapy?

Here are a few other bizarre musings from "Junior" :

"Imaginary, not inflatable, women are okay."

"I am the reason for everything that is, and the end-all be-all of beef jerky.''

"I cried about a steak sandwich one time."

"Did you know I have a pet name for my penis [Floyd]."

Then there are the wannabe meta-ironic, yet staggeringly uninteresting bon mots from the twisted mind of Macaulay, including:

"Drink orange juice, because it's good for you."

"I don't know what the word 'urban' means anymore."

"I ... watch ... television."

"Lonely Tony Mosconi likes eating pepperoni minestrone with Rice-a-Roni while fighting Moses Maloney."

At $22.95, the mostly autobiographical "Junior" is the latest in a string of unchallenging vanity tomes from celebrity non-writers like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, cashing in with their core audience: people who don't read.

In the roman-a-clef voice of "Junior," Culkin describes an abusive father who "woke me up by dragging me out of bed by my face" and who "got very angry and began shamelessly beating my mother over the head."

Of easy sex: "Do you want to hear the best pick-up line I ever heard? 'Nice shoes, wanna f- -k?' ... but these sexual conquests only mean so much ... there comes a time in every man's [woman's] life when he [she] must come to terms with his [her] penis [vagina] and I think I've done just that."

And on the subject of suicide, his alter-ego writes: "I could cut my wrists. You're supposed to do it long-ways, not slant-ways ... There's a million ways to do it.

"I prefer my cup of pills. I like them hidden away from the world. For now that's my right way to do it."

Other choice items are a Things To Do Before I Die list that includes "Live in France" and "Enter a pie-eating contest," and entire pages containing only a single word, like "punchline."

At its most bizarre, the book is almost amusing, as in a crudely drawn cartoon about Deacon and Mildred - Deacon gives Mildred a flower, then Mildred chops off Deacon's head.

Or this poetic jab at Hollywood greed: "Drifting eyes may fall upon you; full of lies and wheatgrass too."

In 1990, the can't-miss kid's blockbuster comedy "Home Alone" raked in a staggering $285 million in domestic gross, putting it in "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" box-office territory.

"Home Alone 2" pulled in another $170 million, and by age 12, the mini mega-star had amassed an estimated $17 million.

Then the bottom fell out. After so-so receptions for "The Good Son" and "Richie Rich," Culkin disappeared completely.

Much of it was blamed on the custody battle between his parents, and their ugly fight over control of Mac and his actor siblings' money.

But even as younger brothers Kieran and Rory gained acclaim in indie flicks like "Igby Goes Down" and "You Can Count on Me," Macaulay didn't make a single movie between 1994 and 2003, when he appeared in "Party Monster," the disappointing tale of club-kid murderer Michael Alig.

His marriage at 17 to actress Rachel Miner lasted only two years, ending in divorce in 2000.

Reports of bizarre behavior and drug use were rampant, as the once cherubic kid from "Uncle Buck" and "My Girl" grew more gaunt and despondent.

Last year, Culkin hit rock bottom - getting busted driving across Oklahoma in a car full of marijuana and unprescribed Xanax.

His most notable appearance in recent memory was testifying for old pal Michael Jackson at the Gloved One's molestation trial. Culkin is godfather to Jacko's firstborn.

It's not easy growing up in the spotlight, and it's a sad story that Macaulay's life went off the rails. But you won't be reading about that story in "Junior."

Instead this is the kind of soul-searching introspection Culkin offers to his readers: "Sometimes I feel like a 3-foot-tall, poverty-stricken, homosexual, handicapped, 50-year-old Muslim woman with AIDS."

Thanks for sharing, Mac.

source: NY Post Online



From Kirkus Reviews:

With Junior, an audaciously empty mishmash of poems, letters, comics, etc., former child star Culkin (of Home Alone fame) has managed to lower the already low bar set for celebrity fiction.

Culkin’s debut novel, to be published on March 15 by Miramax Books, kicks off with a five-question pop quiz meant to weed out any readers not quite up to snuff. Those who fail the quiz, Culkin writes, will not be allowed to go on. Reader, if you know what’s good for you, you will fail the quiz.

The book is essentially comprised of a couple hundred pages of semi-coherent diary entries coupled with a handful of scrawled drawings. The story, insofar as one exists, concerns a child star named Monkey-Monkey Boy and a guy, Junior, with no end of father issues. (People magazine readers will recognize autobiographical elements.)

Culkin isn’t particularly concerned with narrative and takes no legitimate stabs at structure. He sticks instead with a rag-tag rambling style, tossing out his offerings like scraps on a trash heap—poems piled atop lists piled atop letters, none of it really compelling, and none of it really going anywhere. All the usual typographical tricks—font-size changes, phrases crossed out, blank pages helpfully labeled “blank”—are brought out in a rather unsuccessful attempt to disguise the basic pointlessness of the exercise.

Here and there, Culkin manages to string together a few pages of what seem to be passable short stories—the tale of a bathroom tryst at a party, a father and son’s chat after a fight—and at these points the book briefly ascends to the level of mediocrity.

Filled with jokes lacking wit, introspection devoid of insight, poetry made of nothing, this is a work frustratingly short on substance.

Makes Ethan Hawke read like Philip Roth.

[Barbara]

"Sometimes I feel like a 3-foot-tall, poverty-stricken, homosexual, handicapped, 50-year-old Muslim woman with AIDS."

Exaggerating much?

[Tiara]

I so wish he'd gone in celebrity big brother!!

[ourmaninBusan]

With Junior, an audaciously empty mishmash of poems, letters, comics,
etc., former child star Culkin (of Home Alone fame) has managed
to lower the already low bar set for celebrity fiction.

Could that be the most frightening sentence I've read all year?

NO!:

The story, insofar as one exists, concerns a child star
named Monkey-Monkey Boy and a guy, Junior, with no end of father issues.

What about...

Makes Ethan Hawke read like Philip Roth.

OMG! We have a WINNAH!

"Lonely Tony Mosconi likes eating pepperoni minestrone with Rice-a-Roni while fighting Moses Maloney."

[UndercoverGator]

"I prefer my cup of pills. I like them hidden away from the world. For now that's my right way to do it."

I like this one. Think it will be my new siggy.

The book reads beyond crappy and sounds like there's a rubber room somewhere in Macauley's future.

[NawdleZouss]

Is it bad that now I want to read it?

[sputnik]

Originally Posted by NawdleZouss

Is it bad that now I want to read it?

me too actually

[ourmaninBusan]

Originally Posted by UndercoverGator

I like this one. Think it will be my new siggy.

Don't forget to give some attribution to Macauley -- maybe a link
to the book's page on amazon...in case anyone wants it.

[calendargurl]

if HE can get THAT published then i'm gonna be a millionaire b/c those excerpts sound just like all the crap i scribbled down while i was on acid.
one of my favorites (and this is how i spelled it too)
" the mistikal keeps twitching at me." or "she looks like a platypus horse!"

what do ya say? think i could be rich?

[NawdleZouss]

I'd buy it! lmao...platypus horse!

[calendargurl]

haha sweeeet

[Mr. Authority]

WTF??? is all I have to say about his "book". Too bad, he was pretty good in "Saved!", guess he lost his sanity.

[ourmaninBusan]

" the mistikal keeps twitching at me." or "she looks like a platypus horse!"

If I didn't know better I'd swear that was T. S. Eliot!

[aabbcc]

I can't believe anyone would waste their money on such drivel.

[Tenaj]

I'd waste my money just for the laugh!