A set of works in a voice that intriguingly swings between eras and structures, unbeholden to convention.
A young writer presents a compilation of multigenre works, divided into two parts.
According to the introduction, the first part, “Spray Gold Upon the City AKA Spray Paint,” is raw, while the second part, “Artistique AKA Oils,” is more refined. They were written between 2008 and 2013, he notes, and through a manic episode in his early 20s; he writes that he was diagnosed with schizophrenic and manic-depressive illnesses. The book’s first part has a stream-of-consciousness style that’s intricately creative and subversive. It contains moments of rage, contemplations of death and insanity, and a slew of historic references. Despite being described as raw, the first part features many imagistic gems, as in “Rematch, Bobby Fischer, 20 Secs Later”: “I do not e’er have known ye, yet ye speak volumes of prodigies down the lost halls of contrariness. Touch shall be all healing. But until then, no Queen shall touch your King.” In “Black Light Bulb,” “The light is not bright is not white, is dark and dank and black and blue. / A shimmering glow, for all to know, just there, and anything renouncing the spotlight, the ego.” A play titled “Sophocles’s Unfound Friend Tragedy About Scarlet Haired Darcy” tells of a tragedy in which “the Kid” commits suicide after receiving unsound advice from “CBT Therapist” regarding an unanswered letter to a “sensitive chick” named Darcy, who texts the Kid moments after his death. In a moment of clarity, in “Mai ’68 Graffiti, & Joual,” the speaker articulates a fear that will be intimately relatable to anyone who suffers from chronic illness: “Being alive & having a Dead Life instead of a Life is indisputably worse than the Life after Death.”
Sardonic humor tints the more serious works and drives the wholly satirical works in this collection. In “Psych Eval of Jesus Christ, Son of Man,” for instance, Jesus is thusly diagnosed: “Paranoid-Type Self-Referential Delusions. / Delusional Subtype: Primary. / Patient opines God and Salvation frequently.” Sometimes rage and misogyny overcomes the speaker, as in “Hostile Brothels of Fucking Mothers.” In the second part, the theme of death endures. In “O, My Eternal Friend”: “On the beach of the shallow waters of the infinite depth there, Ha. / I walk the plank after you, & we carry thru the drains of ourselves, the veins forever unclogged.” The short story “A Sherpa’s Constitution” evokes an Albert Camus–like absurdist approach to life: “despite purposelessness, the climb itself has an intrinsic purpose. What purpose, Suddah? Suddah looks at me wearily, then, I respond, as knowingly, as self-aware as ever: To go Beyond God.” For the speakers of these many collected works, a wide array of subjects converge: Mathematics meets Marx; women are alien, despised, and revered all at once; and philosophers and Gods are acquaintances. The speaker rules the universe, but remains utterly vulnerable to everything inside it, making for an offbeat exercise in meditative reading.
A set of works in a voice that intriguingly swings between eras and structures, unbeholden to convention.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 134
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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