Christopher Ciccone Book- read it yet?

I ordered mine from Amazon last week, and it arrived on Friday. I couldn't wait to get into it!

Managed to finish it by the end of the day, and found it rather sad, all the crap that went down between them. Our Maddy can be a real bitch, that's for sure. But we all knew that, and love her in spite of it. So does Chris. I hope they can get past all this and get their relationship back on track.

I saw it being sold at The Warehouse for under $30, so grab a copy- the pictures alone are worth it.

Oh crap, how come your stuff from Amazon arrives so quickly? I'd already ordered it when you asked me about it, and mine still hasn't arrived yet!! ...and knowing twh have it now, just adds insult to injury! LOL!!

I got mine at Borders for about $24. So far so good!

madgeattack wrote:

Oh crap, how come your stuff from Amazon arrives so quickly? I'd already ordered it when you asked me about it, and mine still hasn't arrived yet!! ...and knowing twh have it now, just adds insult to injury! LOL!!

hehe well lets say I was overdue some good luck, they held back my ROL LP for a week ( waiting is pure agony!!!) before they decided to send it, I added the book at the last minute and they sent it 2 days later.

I'm currently reading it again, think I was too excited the first time round and didnt take it all in

yeah got mine at the dimmocks for 32.99..... just bout to start, keep ya posted

Okay, I now officially hate all of you...my copy better arrive at my doorstep in the morning!!!!

Awww.. I know how you feel. On Thursday I saw it at The Warehouse and thought if my Amazon package doesn't arrive by the morning, I'm buying the softcover from The Warehouse and will sell it on TM when my hardcover from Amazon arrives. Luckily it turned up in the morning.

Its pure agony to wait, so you have my sympathy.

If you like, I can upload some piccys from the book for you to tide you over:)

......to be honest, I think he is being desparate (after seeing all the interviews so far) and he seems to be clutchings at straws moaning about her behaviour in the early 90's - Her Madgesty has admitted she was a total selfish cow during this time so I don't see the need of her Bro bringing it back up now? It's not 'news' and seems to be a moot point!

Anyway, that's my 2cents worth so far!

HI FLEUR!!!!!!!!!!!! xo

I'm enjoying it so far. He is so, so proud of his sister, and is just recording a memoir of their shared life together.

His story of his life outside of hers is pretty funny too.

The problems arise when she begins to push him away from her. She's done this with countless other people through her life, we all know that. This is just his way of dealing with it. He's a very emotionally fragile person, but unlike everyone else she shoved out of her path, he's fighting back. Good on him.

Takes guts to take her on.

You can download the book here:


[link edited]
Admin: Please read the rules on sharing. This item is readily available for sale.

just loving it. and readily available at whitcoulls, dymocks and the warehouse

Reading it now......although it's not direct, there is a lot of sly little seemingly sour grape comments in it.... Hmm Christopher, so far you're not telling us anything we don't already know!

Have we seen the news that this book was partly ghost-written by Madonna herself (supposedly to drum up ticket sales for the tour in the US)?? This review is pretty funny, but I do feel more sympathy for Christopher - for anyone who has a sibling THAT famous - can't be easy to be your own person, especially as far as the media is concerned!


MEMOIR

Material girl, according to immaterial brother

LYNN CROSBIE

E-mail Lynn Crosbie | Read Bio | Latest Columns
August 9, 2008

LIFE WITH MY SISTER MADONNA

By Christopher Ciccone

Simon Spotlight Entertainment,

342 pages, $28.99

Print Edition - Section Front
Enlarge Image

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So here we have the new Madonna, walking around with what looks like a botched facelift and the weight of possible second divorce on her scrawny shoulders.

As one of her bigger admirers, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, has noted of her appearance (in lurid caps) WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?

Hilton may very well be referring to her brother Christopher's new, flying-to-bestseller-territory memoir, Life With My Sister Madonna, which paints the singer in what he seems to believe is an unflattering light. The easily consumed book contains, in fact, very little dirt on Madonna, or at least nothing she has not already exposed herself, most notably in the 1991 biopic, Truth or Dare.

In that work, Madonna allowed herself to be filmed exploiting her mother's grave (by lying on it), treating old friends and celebrities like trash and wallowing in an ego resembling a pigsty.

To her credit, she has never refused any interpretation of her self, possibly because her "self" is as complex and pastiched as a Ralph Ueltzhoeffer text-painting, having very little or nothing to do with her material being.

As to Madonna the person, her brother's book cannot be sitting well with her, because, in spite of its inane execution, it stands as a shocking betrayal, along the lines of Elvis: What Happened? (written by the King's backstabbing best friends) or, of course, the self-pitying, vile exertions of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Anne Sexton's children.

Christopher Ciccone is, as far as I can gather, amid his name-dropping and startled whining, a dancer of some kind, a designer and music director. Yet he spent most of his life following his sister around, acting as her dresser (in one terrible scene, he and we squirm as he describes wiping sweat from her breasts between numbers), her art-procurer, her interior designer and confidant.

One wished to add to his résumé: professional leech.

Have you ever had a sort-of-talented friend, for whom you feel sorry, and to whom you keep lending and giving money, and who ultimately turns on you out of a mixture of pride and venality?

Madonna has. Except it is her brother, the only member of her large family to whom she has ever appeared to be close. How very Duchess of Malfi, or Dynasty.

Let's look at some of little bro's reasons for writing this inventory of injured feelings. In the book's introduction, Ciccone states: "I had originally hoped this book would also be a way for me to define myself and separate myself from my sister at last. Instead, it has been a catharsis."

I'm sorry, Is Madonna Chang to this nonentity's Eng? Is "catharsis" a synonym for "huge advance"? This dismal apologia ends: "I am truly proud that Madonna is my sister and always will be."

In her relentless, gaudy and spectacular Lucky Santangelo series, trash-artist Jackie Collins (because she heard Madonna was a fan) has a recurring character named Venus Maria, who, coincidentally, has a repulsive leech of a brother who is always mooching from her, raiding her vault for nude shots and, speaking in a guttural mock Italian accent, telling her, "Youse should be happy wit da tings I do for youse!"

Collins may be a dinosaur whose frame of reference stops and starts at Michael Caine "and his exquisite wife, Shakira," Bobby Womack and Jack Nicholson (or "Charlie Dollar"), but she seems to have Maddie figured out.

Did the superstar confide in Collins during one of her exquisitely rare and ephemeral impulses toward friendship? Or is it that obvious that Christopher Ciccone is a self-confessed coke-loving factotum, who does claim, fatuously, that "drugs have never impacted my work," and will drag a lumpy beige Bauhaus couch into your house and call it "Neo-Classical Decor"?

It is tempting to quote from the book, but it runs on into one large bowl of blancmange, or a somewhat impressive conceit about ill-conceived dignity. Worse, the delusional author includes verbatim, ellipses-and-lower-case-larded e-mails he wrote to his sister, which are so vile and hurtful that it is hard to imagine why she did not have him killed. Example? "I gave up 15 years of my life to help make you the evil queen you are today ... 15 years listening to your bitching egotistical rantings, mediocre talent, and a lack of taste that would stun the ages."

Okay, this is hilarious, but who among you would not, as Madonna did, request the sender seek help?

I never have liked Madonna's persona, which reminds me of an ancient supercomputer: too large and too rigidly committed to quantifying (cultural) data-analysis. Yet, the Ciccone book, accidentally, accomplishes two things. It reminds the reader of the artist's ferocious acquisition of fame, at any cost, and it evokes genuine pity.

One thinks of Madonna, inviting her messed-up, invoice-submitting brother to her marriage to Guy Ritchie, perhaps hoping that the notion of family, for her, retains some authenticity.

And what does Christopher do? He moans and groans about the cut and fabric of his tuxedo, the quality of his accommodations and the shocking homophobia of Ritchie, whose best mate said "poofter" during the toasts.

For the gay Ciccone, who still feels slighted for having been outed by Sissie dearest, this is the last straw. I admit that a butch Scottish wedding sounds like a very bad time for all, but his outrage at this dated slang feels mendacious; his charge that Madonna has turned her back on her gay audience is offensive. Madonna has been and always will be one of the great advocates of both gay men and, more critically, AIDS research and awareness.

What is particularly sad about this book, and what may be causing Madonna's wan, gaunt face, is not the disgusting treachery involved in her brother's decision to "define himself" (in the manner a parasite defines itself from a delicious host) is that Madonna, like her white soul brother, Elvis, is not touchable.

I cannot imagine anyone getting away with such a book in the past without using, like the Godfather, "all her power" to squash it; without the writer hesitating for fear of dreadful censure.

This new exposure of Madonna must hurt, though for some, there is delight to be had in wading through Christopher Ciccone's tawdry, scarcely revelatory (Madonna, unpleasant!? What!?) book.

Lynn Crosbie writes the Pop Rocks column for The Globe and Mail. Her most recent book, Liar, was short-listed for the Pat Lowther Award for poetry.