3 results for "Biography"

Love & death: the murder of Kurt Cobain

Wallace, Max
A chilling, groundbreaking investigation into the death of one of the great rock icons of our times -- including exclusive access to the case tapes of Courtney Love's former P.I., and a host of compelling new evidence. On Friday, April 8, 1994, a body was discovered in a room above a garage in Seattle. For the attending authorities, it was an open-and-shut case of suicide. What no one knew then, however, is that the deceased -- Kurt Cobain, the superstar frontman of Nirvana -- had been murdered. Drawing on case tapes made by a P.I. hired by Courtney Love when her husband escaped from drug rehab and went missing -- and on new forensic evidence and police reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act -- Love & Death explodes the long-standing theory that Kurt Cobain took his own life. Award-winning investigative journalists Max Wallace and Ian Halperin have conducted a ten-year crusade for the truth, and in Love & Death they present a stunning, convincing argument that the whole truth has yet to be revealed.
Atria Books 2005-03-29 294 pages

After the miracle: the political crusades of Helen Keller

Wallace, Max
In this "stunning" new history, New York Times bestselling author Max Wallace draws on groundbreaking research to reframe Helen Keller's journey after the miracle at the water pump, vividly bringing to light her rarely discussed, lifelong fight for social justice across gender, class, race, and ability (Rosemary Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author). Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of 2023 Raised in Alabama, she sent shockwaves through the South when she launched a public broadside against Jim Crow and donated to the NAACP. She used her fame to oppose American intervention in WWI. She spoke out against Hitler the month he took power in 1933 and embraced the anti-fascist cause during the Spanish Civil War. She was one of the first public figures to alert the world to the evils of Apartheid, raising money to defend Nelson Mandela when he faced the death penalty for High Treason, and she lambasted Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Cold War, even as her contemporaries shied away from his notorious witch hunt. But who was this revolutionary figure? She was Helen Keller. From books to movies to Barbie dolls, most mainstream portrayals of Keller focus heavily on her struggles as a deafblind child--portraying her Teacher, Annie Sullivan, as a miracle worker. This narrative--which has often made Keller a secondary character in her own story--has resulted in few people knowing that her greatest accomplishment was not learning to speak, but what she did with her voice when she found it. After the Miracle is a much-needed corrective to this antiquated narrative. In this first major biography of Keller in decades, Max Wallace reveals that the lionization of Sullivan at the expense of her famous pupil was no accident, and calls attention to Keller's efforts as a card-carrying socialist, fierce anti-racist, and progressive disability advocate. Despite being raised in an era when eugenics and discrimination were commonplace, Keller consistently challenged the media for its ableist coverage and was one of the first activists to highlight the links between disability and capitalism, even as she struggled against the expectations and prejudices of those closest to her. Peeling back the curtain that obscured Keller's political crusades in favor of her "inspirational" childhood, After the Miracle chronicles the complete legacy of one of the 20th century's most extraordinary figures.
Grand Central Publishing 2024-04-09 416 pages

Schmelvis: in Search of Elvis Presley's Jewish roots

Wallace, Max
It's a little-known fact, but Elvis Presley - the most Christian icon of American pop culture - was Jewish. Heading the cast in a documentary about Elvis's Jewish roots are a Hasidic Jewish Elvis impersonator who performs at senior citizens homes under the stage name Schmelvis and an eccentric Orthodox rabbi named Reuben Poupko. In the book, Schmelvis: The Jewish Roots of Elvis Presley, the films producers Max Wallace and Jonathan Goldstein take the reader behind the scenes to recreate the strange adventures involved in the making of the documentary that took cast and crew to Israel and Graceland. The book includes the following discoveries about Elvis's Jewish background: Elvis always wore a Jewish Chai pendant; he put a Star of David on his mothers headstone; he spent his teenage years living in a predominantly Jewish Memphis neighborhood; cantorial records may have influenced Elvis's singing style; as a young man, he had a nose-job to reduce the prominence of his Jewish nose.
ECW 2002 199 pages