Married to a Rock Star

Rating:
Summary: Shemane Rocks!
Review: Muriel and I must have read different books. I read the book from cover to cover last night and what I got from it was, indeed, the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a young woman who married into a lifestyle that she was not prepared for. Shemane carried us through 14 yrs. of love, insecurity, adversity, and more love than most ever have in a lifetime. She showed us that the rich and famous have the same roadblocks in life that the rest of us do. And most of all, she showed us that true love, inner strength, and commitment CAN move mountains!

Rating:
Summary: Brutal Honesty
Review: Shemaine is very candid, yet makes it clear that rock 'n' roll marriages can work, if each partner is commited to it. Her book is not written out of the need to draw attention to her or her husband's fame, but to be a help to those who may soon face the struggles she and Ted have faced, such as infidelity and the angst of a sometimes long distance relationship. It is entertaining, yet poignant. Highly recommended for both rock stars and just us normal folks who are trying to make a marriage work.

Rating:
Summary: Please Don't Squeeze The Shemane
Review: This book seems to me to be a very highly developed legal scenario with the goal of achieving a lucrative alimony settlement, or, at least, the threat of one. Ms. Nugent starts the book by describing how devastating life with Mr. Nugent has been for her health and emotional well-being. She explains that, prior to their marriage, she "could have been the walking child for health and fitness." Now she always suffers "a tortuous headache." She also has pimples and "a body that has faded into a painful array of maladies." As she writes this book in 2002, she explains that she is filled with "despair and sorrow." She also has "suffocating sensations" and migraines that "torment her weekly." As she sits by her "guitar shaped pool" she writes these descriptions down but says that she will explain the reason for this later in the book. In fact, later in the book she "reluctantly" explains these maladies while adding ulcers to the list of concerns.
Ms. Nugent, who carefully never tells her maiden name lest we think she might be anyone but Ms. Nugent, outs any skeletons that she has in her closet to mute accusations of being a star chaser. First a vague tale of a "rendezvous" with the actor Don Johnson that helped her overcome a previous failed relationship, and, second, she lets us know that she has undergone breast augmentation.
She points out that she was a professional broadcaster who had dreams of being the next Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters. Before working with Ted for the first time, she had been warned about his womanizing ways, but she told herself that she wasn't going to let any man keep her from achieving her professional goals. Unfortunately for her professional dreams, after a short time spent working together on a radio program, charming Ted, who no doubt viewed the attractive Shemane as the trophy that she was, swept her off her feet by inviting her to a boxing match in Las Vegas.
Soon the two were married (1989) - with no prenuptial agreement much to the consternation of Ted's business manager. Shemane then moved far away from the nearest Neiman Marcus, a store she mentions several times in the book, to Ted's modest little brown wood sided house in the swampland of Michigan where there were no signs of wealth. No swimming pool, Jacuzzi, or dishwasher. Somehow she endures. This is "Ted's World" where he was in "Heaven" and she wished that she were somewhere else. She had no job and no friends. Ted had become her "whole life." She was "consumed as if by quicksand," and she regretted putting her career on hold to raise a family. She was completely "isolated in Ted's World." In other words, she gave up everything to stand by her man.
In the year 1990, Ms. Nugent gave birth to a baby boy.
As the years past, life was great. She was happy and in love. She met lots of famous people and even learned to enjoy the great outdoors Ted style. She learned to hunt with bow and arrow as well as with guns. Oddly, she never really makes it clear if she ever learned to enjoy rock and roll concerts. She had never been much interested in either prior to marrying Ted. Good spouse that she was, she learned to like what her husband liked.
Then, sometime in around 1998, Ted guiltily apologized and confessed to having an affair about two years prior (around 1996). Ms. Nugent was naturally very hurt, shocked, jealous, betrayed, and so on. This revelation sets off the long list of afore mentioned maladies. She considered divorce and mentions that she could do like others and collect a monthly check, but she apparently did a great deal of research, as she deftly documents in her book, on the effects of divorce on children. As the good and caring mother that she truly is, determined that this would not be in the best interests of her child.
Like a convict, she adopts religion to help her through this difficult time (fortunately she doesn't have to worry about a parole board - they've seen it before). Apparently, after all the pros and cons were considered, they appear to have worked out some sort of an agreement to stay together. They now have a house in Florida where Shemane lived, or lives, while their son attended prep school while still allowing for a visit to Ted every other weekend back in Michigan or wherever he may be. I would imagine that Ms. Nugent returns to Michigan while her husband is out touring during the summer months, but the book doesn't make this clear.
Since, 6 years after the affair took place and still suffering health problems related to this indiscretion, she wrote the book while sitting next to a guitar shaped pool, I guess that they had a pool put in somewhere. It is not clear as to if the pool is in the "thick, mucky, marshland" of Jackson County or at that house in Florida. Anyway, somehow they've worked things out. Shemane even produces a TV program for the Outdoor channel. Ms. Nugent states in the book, and I believe her, that she has learned "how to turn obstacles into opportunities."
Originally, I had written a much longer review, but, due to word limits, I had to abridge it to make it fit this forum. My wife asked me why I care enough to bother with even writing this. She said that it sounds like they both got what they wanted. Honestly, I don't care really. However, I did enjoy the book. I'm glad that I read it and would recommend it to anyone interested in the Nugent's lifestyle. On the other hand, I do think that the book title is a little misleading. I would give it a more appropriate Nugent-esqe title. For example, how about this one:
Grip It and Clip It!

Rating:
Summary: other reviewers are idiots
Review: This book speaks the truth to one of the many darksides to the rock and roll world. It took a lot of courage to write this book. If you are going to criticize anything, critique the way the book is written, NOT the lives of the people that it is written about. You either love Ted or hate him. Either way this book puts out a message in the too fast too soon world we live in and puts into perspective what is important, love and family. Get a clue!!

Rating:
Summary: An Awful Book
Review: This is a pretty awful book. Married to a Rock Star claims to tell the story of what it's like to be married to Ted Nugent, one of America's loudest rock musicians. But the book does not deliver what it promises. There is little real insight here into what it's like to be married to a rock star. We do learn that Ted and Shemane are wealthy, travel a lot, stay in expensive hotels, shop at Neiman Marcus, and go to parties with other celebrities. But we already knew that. We also learn that animal-rights activists don't like them. But since Ted and Shemane are enthusiastic big game hunters, we could have figured that, too. Instead of real insight into a rock star's life, this book is filled with right-leaning, pro-gun political pablum. (Shemane writes that she is armed with a Lady Smith handgun and a custom-made, zebra-striped rifle and knows how to use them, so don't mess with her.) There is a lot of tedious sermonizing about how "fornication" and the other sins of our immoral society will destroy us unless we lurch to the right, join the NRA, and decide to become Christians. Because of its strong Christian bent (which implies intolerance of other faiths), this book may offend some Jews, Moslems, Hindus, atheists, and other Americans who don't consider themselves Christian. As well, the author opines that it's sex education in the schools that is responsible for America's alarming teenage-pregnancy problem. Also, it seems the Nugents are morally and physically superior to the rest of us who buy our food in grocery stores, instead of harvesting "sacred protein fuel" by killing wild animals. And we learn that they are great admirers of former Vice President and lifelong political lightweight Dan Quayle. His photo actually appears in the book, probably the first photo of this justifiably forgotten former political figure to be published in a decade. So, if you want to read the right-wing views of a particularly wealthy and privileged celebrity wife scolding the rest of us for our sinful, buying-meat-at-the-supermarket ways, read this book. But if you really want to know what it's like to be married to a rock star, you'll have to look elsewhere.