This Broad's Life: The Raucous, Riveting Autobiography of the Most Outrageous Radio Talk-Show...

The second word in the subtitle is beyond dispute: Minneapolis radio talk-show host Carlson lets it all hang out here. Her alcoholism and her binge eating. The first time she stabbed someone. Her boozy mother. The crib death of her first daughter. Her first marriage, to Arne Carlson, who would become Minnesota's current governor but who ""never put his hand on my vagina."" Her stints in varied asylums and rehabs. Her status as a mother, grandmother and pro-choice Republican. Her penchant for misplacing her glasses. Even so, Carlson--aided by Entertainment Weekly senior writer Cagle--casts her story in the form of a conventional autobiography. And while she never seems to pass up the chance to recount some dysfunction, obscene episode, mania or destructive compulsion, behind the brass glows some gold: her vulnerability after her daughter's death, her friendships with other recovering alcoholics, her community involvement. Readers will get just what they might expect from a shock jock: provocation, titillation and, occasionally, emotional truth. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Aug.)