An Instinct for the Kill
Encyclopedia
An Instinct for the Kill (ISBN 073225891X) is the second of Antonella Gambotto-Burke
's books and her second anthology. It was dedicated to investment banker Mark Burrows. In his introduction to the book, Edward de Bono
writes: "Antonella is not afraid of words, ideas, her own opinions or the opinions of others. Perception is personal so truth is also personal. This is much more like Protagoras than like Plato. For Protagoras, perception was the only truth - but it was changeable. For Plato, the fascist, truth was what you had reached when you thought it was the absolute."
An Instinct for the Kill also features interviews with Tori Amos
, Jeffrey Archer, Flavio Briatore
and the Benetton
Formula One
team, Deepak Chopra
, Jerry Hall
, Charlton Heston
, HRH Princess Haya bint al-Hussein (daughter of Hussein of Jordan
), Erica Jong
, Colleen McCullough
, Gene Simmons
of Kiss
, and others.
, Australian author Fiona Capp was more critical, concluding that Gambotto is "a perfect pussycat with those she admires", although she felt that Gambotto's other subjects "often do half the job of damning themselves."
: "After this period of failure and rejection, I began chasing success. At that point it became more important for me to make it than to be a musician. I had lost faith in my work. Instead of telling myself that approval was irrelevant and that all that mattered was the truth of my expression, I became desperate.'"
Jeffrey Archer: "'The English don't welcome success; this is the result of centuries of understating everything. They don't let themselves go! They're all pent up inside! ... BALLS!' he suddenly explodes."
Warwick Capper
: "They see the situation simply enough: quid pro quo, and hold the mustard. Like two creations of a contemporary Twain, are both innocent and wily, delightful and lewd, crude and charming. Warwick may well be an intellectual savannah, but the surfeit of tenderness in Joanne's every look transcends the cold opportunism of which she has been accused. The more sophisticated amongst us probably have something to learn from their unpretentious joy."
Jerry Hall
: "The minute (Mick Jagger
) gets home, ah say: Right! Back to real life! The way everyone treats him, you know? Everywhere he goes it's front page news; everyone wants to meet him; they're all waitin' outside his hotel; huge bouquets of flowers arrive every minute ... it's ridiculous! But ah think he likes it."
Charlton Heston
: "'A lot of these girls were treated just shittily by producers and studio heads and husbands, you know? And then there was the starfuck syndrome. It was just appalling. Rita Hayworth is another example. They were all just terribly abused by the profession.'"
Erica Jong
: "'I don't think I've ever been to an orgy,' she says, suddenly - and surprisingly - shy. And then, in the soft, disappointed tones of a woman who deplores her hostess' taste in china, she says: 'Jon and I went to Plato's Retreat [a defunct New York sex club], which was so awful. We said: We've gotta do this! Are we cultural reporters or ain't we? Let's go! So we went into the mat room, and there were all these sweaty, greasy people with pimples - it was totally anti-erotic, it was just a crock. Jon couldn't get it up, and I can't blame him. There was scum on the water in the hot tub!'"
Gene Simmons
of Kiss
: "At the age of twelve, Gene was studying to be a rabbi at a theological seminary. He and his divorced Hungarian mother were living in a New York ghetto. 'I remember looking out the window one day,' he says, 'and there was this Spanish girl with long, black, THICK hair all the way down to her butt.' The young rabbi-in-training watched as this girl jumped rope, his eyes hanging out of his head. 'Whenever she jumped,' he says with relish, 'it looked like her hair was slapping her butt, and it was the most remarkably erotic thing I've ever seen.'"
Antonella Gambotto-Burke
Antonella Gambotto-Burke is an Australian author and journalist.Gambotto-Burke has written one novel, The Pure Weight of the Heart, two anthologies, Lunch of Blood and An Instinct for the Kill, and a memoir, The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide, which has been published in four languages...
's books and her second anthology. It was dedicated to investment banker Mark Burrows. In his introduction to the book, Edward de Bono
Edward de Bono
Edward de Bono is a physician, author, inventor, and consultant. He originated the term lateral thinking, wrote a best selling book Six Thinking Hats and is a proponent of the deliberate teaching of thinking as a subject in schools.- Biography :Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono was born to...
writes: "Antonella is not afraid of words, ideas, her own opinions or the opinions of others. Perception is personal so truth is also personal. This is much more like Protagoras than like Plato. For Protagoras, perception was the only truth - but it was changeable. For Plato, the fascist, truth was what you had reached when you thought it was the absolute."
An Instinct for the Kill also features interviews with Tori Amos
Tori Amos
Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...
, Jeffrey Archer, Flavio Briatore
Flavio Briatore
Flavio Briatore is an Italian businessman. During the 1980s, he was convicted for multiple counts of fraud, receiving two prison sentences, only one of which he served. As a fugitive from Italy, he set up restaurants and then a number of successful Benneton franchises in the Virgin Islands and the...
and the Benetton
Benetton Formula
Benetton Formula Ltd., commonly referred to simply as Benetton, was a Formula One constructor that participated from to . The team was owned by the Benetton family who run a worldwide chain of clothing stores of the same name. In 2000 the team was purchased by Renault, but competed as Benetton for...
Formula One
Formula One
Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
team, Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra is an Indian medical doctor, public speaker, and writer on subjects such as spirituality, Ayurveda and mind-body medicine. Chopra began his career as an endocrinologist and later shifted his focus to alternative medicine. Chopra now runs his own medical center, with a focus on...
, Jerry Hall
Jerry Hall
Jerry Faye Hall is an American model and actress, also known for her long-term relationship with Mick Jagger, with whom she had four children.-Early life:...
, Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
, HRH Princess Haya bint al-Hussein (daughter of Hussein of Jordan
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal was the third King of Jordan from the abdication of his father, King Talal, in 1952, until his death. Hussein's rule extended through the Cold War and four decades of Arab-Israeli conflict...
), Erica Jong
Erica Jong
Erica Jong is an American author and teacher best known for her fiction and poetry.-Career:A 1963 graduate of Barnard College, and with an M.A...
, Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough-Robinson, , is an internationally acclaimed Australian author.-Life:McCullough was born in Wellington, in outback central west New South Wales, in 1937 to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved...
, Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, actor, and rock bassist. Known as "The Demon", he is the bassist/vocalist of Kiss, a hard rock band he co-founded in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
of Kiss
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
, and others.
Critical response
In her review of the book, Australian author Tegan Bennett described Gambotto as "one of the most exciting writers and interviewers it has ever been my luck to read," and "the MENSA mannequin, a shit-stirrer, a show-off, a fearless, funny, beautiful woman who never sticks to the rules." Above all else, Bennett concludes, Gambotto "seems to value honesty, which is why Warwick and Joanne Capper are treated with such affection." In The AgeThe Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, Australian author Fiona Capp was more critical, concluding that Gambotto is "a perfect pussycat with those she admires", although she felt that Gambotto's other subjects "often do half the job of damning themselves."
Quotations
Tori AmosTori Amos
Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...
: "After this period of failure and rejection, I began chasing success. At that point it became more important for me to make it than to be a musician. I had lost faith in my work. Instead of telling myself that approval was irrelevant and that all that mattered was the truth of my expression, I became desperate.'"
Jeffrey Archer: "'The English don't welcome success; this is the result of centuries of understating everything. They don't let themselves go! They're all pent up inside! ... BALLS!' he suddenly explodes."
Warwick Capper
Warwick Capper
Warwick Capper is a retired high profile professional Australian rules football full-forward who played with the Sydney Swans with a short stint at the Brisbane Bears in the VFL ....
: "They see the situation simply enough: quid pro quo, and hold the mustard. Like two creations of a contemporary Twain, are both innocent and wily, delightful and lewd, crude and charming. Warwick may well be an intellectual savannah, but the surfeit of tenderness in Joanne's every look transcends the cold opportunism of which she has been accused. The more sophisticated amongst us probably have something to learn from their unpretentious joy."
Jerry Hall
Jerry Hall
Jerry Faye Hall is an American model and actress, also known for her long-term relationship with Mick Jagger, with whom she had four children.-Early life:...
: "The minute (Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
) gets home, ah say: Right! Back to real life! The way everyone treats him, you know? Everywhere he goes it's front page news; everyone wants to meet him; they're all waitin' outside his hotel; huge bouquets of flowers arrive every minute ... it's ridiculous! But ah think he likes it."
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
: "'A lot of these girls were treated just shittily by producers and studio heads and husbands, you know? And then there was the starfuck syndrome. It was just appalling. Rita Hayworth is another example. They were all just terribly abused by the profession.'"
Erica Jong
Erica Jong
Erica Jong is an American author and teacher best known for her fiction and poetry.-Career:A 1963 graduate of Barnard College, and with an M.A...
: "'I don't think I've ever been to an orgy,' she says, suddenly - and surprisingly - shy. And then, in the soft, disappointed tones of a woman who deplores her hostess' taste in china, she says: 'Jon and I went to Plato's Retreat [a defunct New York sex club], which was so awful. We said: We've gotta do this! Are we cultural reporters or ain't we? Let's go! So we went into the mat room, and there were all these sweaty, greasy people with pimples - it was totally anti-erotic, it was just a crock. Jon couldn't get it up, and I can't blame him. There was scum on the water in the hot tub!'"
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, actor, and rock bassist. Known as "The Demon", he is the bassist/vocalist of Kiss, a hard rock band he co-founded in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
of Kiss
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
: "At the age of twelve, Gene was studying to be a rabbi at a theological seminary. He and his divorced Hungarian mother were living in a New York ghetto. 'I remember looking out the window one day,' he says, 'and there was this Spanish girl with long, black, THICK hair all the way down to her butt.' The young rabbi-in-training watched as this girl jumped rope, his eyes hanging out of his head. 'Whenever she jumped,' he says with relish, 'it looked like her hair was slapping her butt, and it was the most remarkably erotic thing I've ever seen.'"