A remarkable road trip involving personal discovery.
The author of a self-help guide goes on the road to meet his readers and hear their stories in this autobiographical work.
“We’re constantly finding things not to love about ourselves,” writes Chaleff in his latest book, following 2018’s The Last Letter. “The things that have been quietly eating away at us. Our weaknesses and mistakes. Our embarrassments and failures. Our disappointments and frustrations.” The Last Letter culminated in a simple, jarring hypothetical statement the author posed to his readers: “If you knew someone in your life would die tomorrow and you had one last chance to express feelings to him or her, what would you say?”In this volume, Chaleff takes that query on the road, traveling around the United States to ask people questions and hear their tales. In Big Sur, California, for instance, one such conversation ends: “We laugh. We then speak openly for the next half hour, seeing one another, feeling closer, appreciating the different ways we live.” This salutary undercurrent of understanding and even healing found in personal storytelling runs throughout the book, with the author returning repeatedly to his disarming question: What would your last letter to your loved one say? What things are most important for you to pass on? The work is lavishly illustrated with uncredited color photographs of the people and places Chaleff encountered, but it’s the personal elements that are the most memorable. These aspects extend to the author himself, who at one point relates a trip he made to his mother’s grave (“Even though I have spent so much time sharing the pain in sessions, standing back at this moment isn’t easy”). The necessarily episodic nature of the narrative can make some of the confessional vignettes feel a bit repetitive, and occasionally Chaleff can, ironically enough, come across as more focused on getting to his next session than actually spending time with people. But the simple conviction of communication shines through.
A remarkable road trip involving personal discovery.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64663-121-6
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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