A thoroughly enjoyable hybrid of flashy pictorial, artsy production, and outspoken autobiography.
A singular fixture on the New York City club scene reveals the private details of her gender transition in a photo-heavy memoir.
Buxom performance artist Lepore, 49, boasts having “the most expensive body on earth,” yet her beginnings were humble. She was born Armand to a suburban New Jersey chemical engineer and his elegant, sophisticated “trophy wife.” The author’s early unhappiness, beginning at age 5, stemmed from a passionate yearning to become her truest self: a girl. Dreaming of long blonde hair and excitedly reaching for Barbies (“everything I wanted to be”) instead of Hot Wheels, Lepore frustrated her father and compassionately doted over her mother, who suffered from intermittent paranoid schizophrenia. Though her parents eventually separated, Lepore was determined to master makeup skills, the rules of femininity, the ability to please men with her body, and the wonder of hormones. This all led to the sex change procedure she had been envisioning to make her physically whole. A failed marriage behind her, she went on to conquer the Manhattan party scene in the 1990s with melodramatic appearances and adored performances. Complementing the author’s wonderfully candid, unrushed text are pages of impeccably styled, posed, and provocative photographs—many seminude—showcasing an obvious love of fashion, glamour, and pride in her own expensively enhanced female form. “I associate dressing up with mental stability,” writes the author, who doesn’t skimp on intimate personal details. Scattered throughout the book are sidebars of personal factoids and clever tips as well as snippets on everything from her personal grooming particulars and the dos and don’ts of female hair and nail care. Though confined to just a few pages, Lepore offers some sage advice for transgender youth and those embarking on their own journeys into gender transformation. Through generous photos and a narrative that could stand alone, this is a must-have collector’s item for readers eager for a glimpse into the unique world of a fearless chanteuse.
A thoroughly enjoyable hybrid of flashy pictorial, artsy production, and outspoken autobiography.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-942872-85-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Regan Arts
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
For the author’s fans.
A Fox News journalist and talk show host sets out to prove that she is not “an empty St. John suit in five-inch stiletto heels.”
The child of devout Christians, Minnesota native Carlson’s first love was music. She began playing violin at age 6 and quickly revealed that she was not only a prodigy, but also a little girl who thrived on pleasing audiences. Working with top teachers, she developed her art over the years. But by 16, Carlson began “chafing at [the] rigid, structured life” of a concert violinist–in-training and temporarily put music aside. At the urging of her mother, the high achiever set her sights on winning the Miss T.E.E.N. pageant, where she was first runner-up. College life at Stanford became yet another quest for perfection that led Carlson to admit it was “not attainable” after she earned a C in one class. At the end of her junior year and again at the urging of her mother, Carlson entered the 1989 Miss America pageant, which she would go on to win thanks to a brilliant violin performance. Dubbed the “smart Miss America,” Carlson struggled with pageant stereotypes as well as public perceptions of who she was. Being in the media spotlight every day during her reign, however, also helped her decide on a career in broadcast journalism. Yet success did not come easily. Sexual harassment dogged her, and many expressed skepticism about her abilities due to her pageant past. Even after she rose to national prominence, first as a CBS news broadcaster and then as a Fox talk show host, Carlson continued—and continues—to be labeled as “dumb or a bimbo.” Her history clearly demonstrates that she is neither. However, Carlson’s overly earnest tone, combined with her desire to show her Minnesota “niceness…in action,” as well as the existence of “abundant brain cells,” dampens the book’s impact.
For the author’s fans.Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42745-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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