The Bite in the Apple by Chrisann Brennan Review
The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs by Chrisann Brennan
Category: Volume
Price: $16.59 hardcover
It'due south a natural instinct to presume that a volume written in the wake of a famous (and famously litigious) person'due south decease might well be a greenbacks-in — particularly when the writer of said book is an ex-lover, with an all-as well-apparent axe to grind. That was my starting time instinct when approaching The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs, whose writer, Chrisann Brennan, will be well-known to Apple followers as the first girlfriend of Jobs — and the female parent of his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, who the Apple co-founder denied paternity of for many years. The suggestion that this is a coin grab is seemingly backed upwards when Brennan starts the book by challenge that she non only never considered studying history, simply had little interest in writing a book either: both seeming prerequisites for a person writing what essentially amounts to a mod history book. Misgivings deepen yet further when Brennan locates the book'southward origins as following on from a 2006 spate of ill-health which left her financially destitute and "virtually homeless."
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"A wounded honey alphabetic character…"
In some means I was very wrong in this judgment of the book, which feels less similar a cynical cash-in than it does a wounded love letter of the alphabet to a human the author never quite cracked the surface of. What follows zips unevenly between genuine insight, wild accusations, hormonal gushing ("God, he was cute"), and the kind of cod-philosophy it is like shooting fish in a barrel to imagine a Palo Alto therapist prescribing alongside yoga and Greek yoghurt. (What, for instance, are we to brand of the line: "I realized that Steve was entering the world stage through two bastions of male power from ii hemispheres"?)
That isn't to say that all of Brennan'southward insights fall nether this category, however. Some of her ruminations about Jobs are thoughtful and considered — and possibly more importantly fill in some spaces in Jobs' biography that would otherwise remain bare. We hear, for case, more we e'er have previously about Jobs' relationship with his adoptive male parent, Paul Jobs (complete with speculation that Jobs may have been beaten as a child). Brennan traces Jobs' seeking of approval from older male figures in his life — a situation which played out nearly notably with later Apple CEO John Sculley — to his relationship with his militaristic male parent, and even links this to Jobs' decision to prefer a compatible in later life (the famous blueish Levis, black turtleneck combination) when he reached "elder" status himself.
Nosotros likewise hear far more details about Jobs' relationship with another surrogate begetter figure — his Sōtō Zen teacher Kobun Chino — who Brennan paints every bit i of the nearly influential figures in Jobs' life, just who received a mere thirteen mentions in Walter Isaacson's acclaimed Steve Jobs biography (thanks e-reader search!).
Undoubtedly Steve could be mercurial; turning on a dime from effusively praising a person to viciously condemning them, and both sides of that personality are on brandish in The Bite in the Apple tree. Brennan recalls Jobs' goofy humor as a teenager, seen through his retro robot impressions. She describes his alter-ego of "Oaf Tolbar" ("He signed love letters with 'Love, Oaf,' she writes), and even drops a line about his supposed love of auditing Reed College trip the light fantastic toe classes ("I tried to imagine him in a leotard, but I couldn't quite see it.") She as well reveals Jobs' "potent sense of having had a past life" as a World War II pilot, and details his mail-Republic of india forays into tantric sex activity — with an anecdote most Jobs trying to coerce Brennan into making "tantric beloved with him in his garden shed", which momentarily threatens to tip the book into L Shades of Steve territory.
"[H]is coworkers found him so dark and negative"
At other times, Bad Steve comes out. Brennan disagrees with the oft-cited story almost Jobs being moved to the night shift at Atari because he smelled bad — explaining the decision by instead saying that "his coworkers establish him so dark and negative."
No effect paints Jobs in a worse light, however, than his abandonment of daughter Lisa. If in that location is a heart to the volume after a meandering, slow-going fast half, it is the story of how Brennan wound up getting pregnant, having a daughter, and struggling to have Jobs acknowledge his function as the begetter. Brennan notes that Jobs didn't phone or plow up at the infirmary until three days after his daughter's birth, and later (in)famously claimed that "28% of the Usa could be the father" of his kid, earlier a DNA test eventually confirmed paternity.
There is certainly a cruel irony to Jobs denying paternity of his so-only kid, presently earlier Time magazine (at least according to some versions of the story) was due to name him "Man of the Year". In a further twist, Time wound up changing the award to "Machine of the Year" — offering a poignant analog to Jobs' emotionless, machine-similar behavior. In that location is additionally a disturbing chestnut near Jobs behaving inappropriately around his daughter, which causes Brennan to interject the disclaimer, "I will be clear … Steve was not a sexual predator of children." I wasn't sure what to make of this, and for the kickoff time fabricated me worry that my initial misgivings regarding the book were correct.
The real entreatment of a book about young Steve Jobs, of form, is that we get to see some of the embryonic jigsaw pieces that would later assemble themselves to create one of the near successful entrepreneurs of the last century. "Steve was a problem solver," Brennan writes. "He would often explicate a problem and and then show me the mode through information technology." Brennan here refers to dietary suggestions, or else the "decoding" of Bob Dylan lyrics, but one can hands extrapolate and see this every bit the basis for Jobs' later on concern success: non only helping create hit new products, but telling u.s.a. how they would ameliorate our lives. Nosotros learn that Jobs had a top-of-the-range bright carmine IBM Selectric typewriter growing up: evidencing a dearest of high quality, and beautifully designed, technology fifty-fifty from a young historic period.
Other times the reader feels that they are mayhap overstretching to read revelatory details where none might exist. Does Brennan's suggestion that "Steve lived in a symbolic world of his own" somehow prefigure his insistence on characterful icons (symbols by any other name) on the Macintosh? Or does it just mean that Steve was a bit detached growing up?
There are a few pieces of Apple tree trivia contained within The Bite in the Apple that I don't believe take popped upward anywhere else. Brennan reports, for instance, that Jobs originally wanted his daughter to be named Claire so that Jobs could name his next figurer The Claire, as a nod to the "clairvoyance" of Apple's ability to wait into the future.
The good thing nigh learning previously unreleased bits of information, of course, is that it helps the states fill up in the gaps about Apple history. The bad role is that when you're dealing with such a well-documented office of Apple tree history, going along with a story that has been reported past no-one else makes you question other details of the book. (Since Jobs denied for years that the Lisa computer was named after his daughter, why did he need his girl to be called Claire to name his figurer this?)
"Helps united states fill in [some] gaps [regarding] Apple history"
Whether or not this volume volition appeal to you lot rests finally on how interested you are in Jobs' personal life during the 1970s and 80s. If you felt like you learned everything you needed to know near Jobs from the 2011 Isaacson biography, The Bite in the Apple will be unlikely to come up with a recommendation. The aforementioned is true if y'all're looking for a business volume, or annihilation that touches on Apple as it exists today.
Personally, I found parts of the volume that interested me as an Apple tree fan (and one-time Jobs biographer), and other parts which felt superfluous, or overly unqualified. Ultimately this book won't unpick the complex enigma that was Steve Jobs, merely it may provide you with 1 or two insights that will augment the other information that is already out there.
Brennan's relationship with Jobs was challenging up until the stop, when she was un-invited to his Stanford memorial service after agreeing to cooperate with a story for Rolling Rock magazine. The Bite in the Apple is presented as closure for Brennan on the subject field of her 1-time lover, merely in some senses it however feels like she hasn't made her mind upward.
She may well describe Jobs equally a "haunted business firm" who disdainfully treated people similar rats in a feedback experiment, but even so she clearly withal feels strongly enough to write a book — during which she defends him from criticism at various points.
And yes, she acknowledges, she did write information technology on a Mac.
P
Product Name: The Seize with teeth In The Apple tree: A Memoir of My Life With Steve Jobs
The Good: A different accept on the personal life of Apple's co-founder
The Bad: Uncomfortable reading in places. Volition not entreatment to everyone.
The Verdict An interesting, if uneven, book for Steve Jobs completists
Buy from: Amazon.com
[rating=good]
Source: https://www.cultofmac.com/252192/the-bite-in-the-apple-a-memoir-of-my-life-with-steve-jobs-review/
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