Jackie Stewart was one of the finest racers I ever had the privilege of watching. Out of 99 Grands Prix he won a staggering 27! In 1969 after only four years in F1 he won his first world championship. This book details the following year 1970, a difficult year for Stewart since he lost two very close friends to motor racing.

This book recounts how Stewart was forced to re-examine and affirm his motivation and commitment to the sport, before charging back in 1971 to win his second of three world championships.

I'm a fan of oral biographies, of which this is one. I like the immediacey of collected interview quotes, so like the way this book was presented. It's an interesting look at Mailer's life. The bit that impressed me most, was the example of the liberal elite giving a free pass to Mailer for committing a violent crime because he was one of theirs. When Mailer stabbed his wife, sending her to the hospital for a good stay, and himself to an insane asylum, the New York liberal elite pretty much excused Mailer for his behavior! The cocktail party talk about Mailer in Fifth Ave apartments was that Norman must have been a little upset, etc. He was in their clique so it was okay! It was a total duplication of the liberal elites' excusing of Bill Clinton's raping Juanita Broaddrick (read Christopher Hitchens' book NO ONE LEFT TO LIE TO for more on that). Hitchens interviewed three women who independent of each other said Bill Clinton raped them. But the liberal elite excuses Bill Clinton because he's one of theirs! I can't help but think that being a member of the liberal elite is like being the member of a cult. Anyway, it's stuff like this that makes Manso's biography of Mailer worth reading.

This is a VERY detailed account of Brando. I can't say that i even believed alot of the details in here, manso seems to make a LOT of conclusions about Brando without and supporting evidense.

But some of the details he gives are just downright boring after a while. I became very bored and skipped ahead in the book 50 pages....and it felt like i missed nothing at all: Brando studies to be an actor....Brando has sex with her her and her.

Also he seems to go into a lot of detail about the people in Brando's life. I was always thinking "so what about this person....i bought a book about Brando".

All and all, it had a lot of good "facts". I cant say i believe a good portion of it, but interesting stuff. Definatly could of been about 100-200 pages shorter though.

An amazingly detailed and gripping read, taking one on a journey from the heights to the depths of Brando's character.

You can tell Peter Manso dug deep into Marlon's past to get so much information on him...EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING you have EVER wanted to know about Brando is in this book...unlike Brando's own biography, Peter doesn't leave anything out...after reading this you'll feel as though you were next to Brando every step of his life. He talks about Brando's childhood, his days before stardom in New York, his parents, siblings, lovers (most are female, a few are male) wives, and children...he holds nothing back. Another thing that is great is every single play and movie Brando ever acted in, he tells in GREAT detail of how Brando behaved on set, how he got along w/ the co-stars, how he prepared for the film, who he was sleeping with at the time, what he felt about the movie, and even gave exact quotes from the movie reviewers and papers in reference to that movie. Peter also lets us know everything about Brando's children including his son, Christian's trial (for the murder of his 1/2 sister Cheyenne's boyfriend) and also Cheyenne's mental deterioration after the murder *the book was written before she commited suicide* Much time is spent on telling us about Brando's experience w/ helping the Civil Rights Movement, as well as helping the Native Americans, and his experiences and time spent on his beloved island in Tahiti. He also gives direct quotes from Brando, as well as Brando's family members and friends, as well as court transcripts and interviews...as you read this of course you must realize some of it may be stretching the truth a little or a lot, but Peter lets you know by giving different people's versions of the same story. VERY INFORMATIVE book, this is a MUST for any movie fan, after all many movie stars are mentioned throughout this book, because Brando was associated w/ them one way or another: Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sophia Loren, Rita Morena, Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, and many more. I recommend this one. A+

This is a sloppy, lazy, badly written piece of work whose only purpose is to argue that Provincetown has been ruined by those awful homosexuals. Manso tries to cover himself with stories about Jay Critchley, but the real driving force of the book is his hatred of gay people. If you hate homosexuals, especially those with money, you might enjoy this book. Otherwise, I suggest that you skip it.

This book is one of the worst I have had the misfortune of reading. It is loosely put together from a "pile" of essentially useless information, most of which comes from "conversations", rather than well researched documentation. The first chapter should have been the tipoff to quit reading. The description of the renovations to a house by a wealthy couple is so vapid, that I found myself wondering why they let the author use them in the book; and the relevance to the rest of the book is so obscure, that it is almost nonexistent. This book does a beautiful, historic town a grave disservice by presenting a skewed, smarmy overview of the lives of a very select group of people who live there. Definately a thumbs down book.

I first visited Ptown just after the mid-Sixties when two gay artist friends of mine bought a house there and turned it into a very barebones B&B with a gallery attached. Ptown was a great place, and I have returned there many times since.

I found Manso's book to be well written and entertaining, despite a minority of Amazon reviewers who found it quite otherwise. His style is straightforward, and the narrative is a combination of history, storytelling and gossip interwoven in a very deft manner. He develops various topics in the story of Ptown and does an excellent job of weaving in the life stories of a wide spectrum of Ptown's inhabitants. If you have a problem reading Manso's book, then "walk/don't walk" signs must be daily life threatening situations.

The author sketches in the pre-colonial and 19th century history of Ptown with interesting anecdotes; however it is in his presentations of the development of the Portuguese fishing community, the beginning of the arts colony and the arrival of the earlier gay settlers in the 60s and 70s - and their battles, cominglings and final integration - where he excells. The lives of many people are explored and they weave in and out of the Ptown story over the years so that one gets a real feel for the community.

There were three reviewers who claimed that the book is homophobic, though one of those reviews has now disappeared. As a gay man, I really feel compelled to comment on those claims. And my response is "{crud}!" One of these complainers after making that assertion, then goes on to also complain that certain topics are treated at too great a length - one of them being a gay man who has been at the center of Ptown's life for decades, and has been involved in many of community service projects. Maybe she read so fast she didn't realize he was gay.

Several members of the established gay community are featured repeatedly, prominently and positively in the book. Manso has certainly balanced his attentions very fairly among the Portuguese, artistic, and gay communities of Ptown, and he has done a great job showing how the town various elements could pull together when faced with crises.

However, in the end this is not just the story of the life, but the death by strangulation of an old diverse - get that word, "diverse" - rock 'em, sock 'em town funky old place. The impact in the Nineties of luxury real estate development aimed overwhelmingly at wealthy gay people and a flashy commercial environment for gay visitors has all but killed the town. The powerful arts and business conglomerates - very heavily gay in their makeup - are advocating more and more economic development and centralization; however, failing to point out that it will primarily benefit them, and not the old long time communities of Ptown.

The Portuguese, the artists and the old time gay residents are not only being pushed out by the sky-high costs of life in Ptown, they are not wanted by the wave of gay arrivistes who are indifferent, when not antagonistic, to Ptown's past history and traditions - and the new arrivals make no bones about. It is ironic that we gay people who make so much - in our political campaigning - about diversity are actively and with malice destroying it in Ptown. Manso is not homophobic on this score even, from my own personal experience I would say he's been, if anything, extremely lighthanded.

I had decided in the 90's to investigate Ptown as a place to settle in year around. I was fortunate enough to have enough money to consider purchasing an apartment there and felt that if it were well enough situated I could deal with the hordes of summer visitors that almost suffocate Ptown. However, I wanted to get a picture of the all-year residents, and, therefore, stayed for three off-season months with two gay friends who lived in Ptown. During that time they seemed to be constantly and unwillingly sucked into "us against them" conversations. Twice they were visited by recent gay female residents who proceeded to instruct them on what their attitudes should be on local issues, and in each case departed with a shameless warning that "If you don't support us, you'll be sorry you live here." I was stunned - my friends were established gay residents in town. I left convinced - and Manso's book confirms the rightness of my decision - that the new Ptown was not run by the kind of people I would want for neighbors. Ultimately I found that Europe offered more congenially integrated gay-straight society.