An impressively meditative but idiosyncratic account of a remarkable journey.
In this memoir, a woman recalls her sudden retreat as a troubled teenager into the wilderness to start over with a man she hardly knew.
Chappell was raised in privileged circumstances—she enjoyed all the comforts of upper-middle- class life, including a country club membership and private school. But her life at home was rife with discontent, a condition she describes with great candor and sensitivity. She recounts that her parents’ marriage was in trouble and her mother sought solace in alcohol. In addition, the author reveals that she was subjected to repeated sexual abuse by her brother-in-law. She convinced her parents to send her to a boarding school in Troy, New York, but even that escape didn’t prove sufficient. When she met Bill, an older man who lived a rugged life in Montana on the Canadian border on a homestead he called Val Halla, she immediately became infatuated, and decided she would start a new life with him. They began to exchange letters, and while he showed her little encouragement at first, she steadfastly resolved to carry out her plan. Before her senior year, she ran away from school, an act of “outright rebellion” that her parents, with the help of the headmaster, Dennis Collins, were able to waylay. Chappell agreed to finish school but she never gave up her dream to move in with Bill. She remained determined, even after his letters revealed a darker side of him, one prone to outlandish conspiracy theories, wild predictions about an “apocalyptic future,” and blustery self-aggrandizement. At one point, Bill sent her a manifesto of sorts in which he dogmatically declared that “the college degree is a subliminal deception & mockery to an education.” His sense of superiority was disconcerting, but she shared his bleak critique of modern culture, a set of misgivings she embraced: “Yes, I thought, reading his premises, that looks about right.” Chappell finally moved in with Bill and they began a romantic relationship, but one that proved far less satisfying than she hoped—he turned out to be cranky, imperious, and prone to a volatile impatience.
Chappell’s remembrance is as thoughtfully rendered as it is elegantly composed. While her experience of living in the wilds with Bill was far from ideal—she ultimately decided to leave—she refuses to condemn the adventure in its entirety. In fact, she recalls her time in Montana with considerable fondness as a necessary corrective to the failings of contemporary life: “My short time with Bill at Val Halla reinforced what I already believed about living simply, gave me the strength and tools to understand a life without modern convenience, opened my senses, and cultivated in me a deep reverence for the natural world. That time would remain vivid, coloring the many other layers of my life—stitched and torn, patched and added to along the way.” But this is a decidedly personal and narrow memoir—the author includes numerous letters in their entirety between herself and her parents as well as family photographs. While her intricate story is intriguing, it is best suited to readers who know her.
An impressively meditative but idiosyncratic account of a remarkable journey.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64742-269-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
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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