A piercing poetic meditation on death, grief, and family.
Among acclaimed novels and other works, Mansbach may be best known for his zeitgeist-grabbing children’s book Go the Fuck To Sleep (2011). Here, he turns to weightier matters in this free-verse account of the suicide of his brother, David. “i could tell you / a few stories about stories, / flip a little wordplay, we could / warm up with some improv / games. it has been eight / fucking years & i have written / everything but this,” he writes, immediately before telling of how he learned the news. His father called to say, “david has taken his own life,” to which his response was a dull “what?” Of all the many regrets that ensued, Mansbach writes, a small but obviously unresolved one is that he made his father “say it to me twice.” Small revelations abound: David suffered from depression, was incommunicative as a child, was perhaps on the autism spectrum: “his intelligence clustered in / an unfamiliar quadrant, / was not fierce & literary / but curious, methodical, & / this was foreign, hard / to see at first.” While his first reaction, he notes, was to utter “banshee sounds,” he sought explanation in family history and discussions with others whose siblings committed suicide—not a support group or “a meeting of suicide / survivors, that is the / tortured, oxymoronic / nomenclature for the / people left behind,” but rather shattered individuals such as a bookseller who worked through his grief via memoirs by schizophrenics who wrote in times before there was even a word for their condition. In the end, writing that “the only thing worse than not understanding would be to understand,” Mansbach turns to his daughters with the plea that they outlive him and a promise to his brother: “i will not let you go.”
A wounded though loving paean that will speak to anyone who has lost a sibling, no matter the cause of death.Pub Date: April 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13479-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
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A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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