Book In Review

Kitty Kelley who is known for writing what is considered to be negative, tell all, biographies has written one about America’s warm and fuzzy television talk show icon, Oprah.  While this biography is very different from her other biographies in that she doesn’t disclose any real big powerful career fireworks; it still is an eye opener for the reader who expects that they know all about the subject of the book, Oprah.

For one thing, I consider myself to be a person who is well read, well informed on most social issues of the day regarding many of our leading celebrities.  Oprah is definitely a celebrity extra-ordinare.  She has fame, power, a benevolent image and lots of money.  This is a successful combination and I think that many people admire her for what she has been able to achieve in her lifetime.  She started out with very humble roots and she has climbed to the peak of success in her chosen field.

We have all heard bits and pieces of innuendo and gossip over the years about Oprah.  We have all heard about her close relationship with Gayle King, with her long time companion Stedman S. Graham as well as Oprah’s struggle with her weight and her spiritual journey to a higher self.  We all knew of her sexual abuse as a child/teen and her pregnancy that resulted in the birth of a baby who died shortly after birth.

What many of us have not heard are the behind the scenes moments of her climb to success.  We have heard rumors and innuendos on occasion.   However, we have not heard over much about her obsessive need for control…contracts that bind pretty much anyone who makes an appearance or does business with her in anyway from speaking out about their experience or their knowledge of her.  This was one of the most fascinating parts of the book for me.

While on one hand, I can certainly understand a celebrity’s need for privacy-as we all know, people will sell out a celebrity to a tabloid for money.  So, in some ways to protect any kind of an opportunity for a private life a celebrity must take desperate measures to insure that an employee or acquaintance isn’t going to make common knowledge violations of a person’s right to keep certain pieces of information out of the public eye.  However, it appears that this goes to the extreme when the person is Oprah Winfrey.

I also found the allegations of extreme greed, excess when it comes to material things for both herself and her friends or beneficiaries of her gifting to be somewhat troubling.  Oprah is an intelligent woman who is informed on so many subjects and yet, the instances that were shared in the book about her extreme extravagence seemed disappointing to me.   Her relationships come across as desperate and the antithesis of so many of her educational talk shows about women in dysfunctional relationships; this too was sad.

Now Kitty Kelley has been accused over the years of being a little too free with factual points in her books…in this book it is alleged that she has interviewed over 800 people in her research for the book.  She has a big publisher behind the sale of this book and in doing so…I am sure that they made certain that all the information in the book was able to be defended legally or there would be a very large price to pa,y both in a monetary way and in the form of reputation.

At the end of the book, I felt that I had a more complete idea of who Oprah is and who she projects herself to be.  What it boils down to is that Oprah is a complex woman of many layers.  She desires to do good and does in many ways, she controls what she can and struggles with the areas of life where she can’t control circumstances, she loves and fears, she praises and condemns, she supports and holds back her support when she feels strongly about a subject that she is passionate about.  Is that any different from any of the rest of us?

Is Oprah too big for her britches when it comes to influencing others?  Some would say yes, some would say no.  Do her ambitions in life jive with the goals of a person on a good and true course with a spiritual journey to their best self awareness and ability to live with a life of purpose?  Only God can answer that one.