A detailed and very involving account of a daughter dealing with her father’s debilitating disease.
Arapakos’ memoir chronicles helping a father suffering from Huntington’s Disease.
In the continuing story of her father, the author here moves the story forward into his years of increasing illness and debilitation as he experienced the complications of Huntington’s. Arapakos organizes this account of her experiences using the imaginative conceit of the 12 labors of Hercules, with, for instance, the cleaning of the Augean Stables corresponding to cleaning out her father’s house, and the capture of the Cretan Bull standing in for the tangled process of moving her father into an assisted living facility. As her father’s disease progresses and he gradually loses the independence he so fiercely loved, Arapakos charts how she came to handle “the lion’s share” of the responsibility for her father’s care. She splits her narrative along several lines, giving readers a surfeit of information about Huntington’s and other neurological diseases while documenting her father’s slow, grudging, rear-guard action against the loss of the life he knew. (“The doctors he tried to solicit all ended up to no avail because of the abundant evidence stacked against him,” reads one passage. “In the end, his ability to travel abroad was terminated when I hid his passport.”) These narrative braids strengthen each other as the story progresses to its inevitable ending; thanks to the author’s great storytelling skill, readers will be caught up in the drama. Arapakos often deploys very dramatic language to describe the nightmare her father is experiencing: “It’s like watching the free-flowing, unconstrained blathering of a man straddling two continents,” she writes; “two brains, two histories, and he’s on fire for all the memories gushing out, yet all the while logic gets lacerated and can’t process what’s relevant at hand.” Her story of her father and herself contending with the “third party” of his disease (and how that third party affects their relationship) is never less than gripping.
A detailed and very involving account of a daughter dealing with her father’s debilitating disease.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2024
ISBN: 9798385033539
Page Count: 756
Publisher: WestBowPress
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
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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