An honest and revealing account of romantic relationships later in life.
An Arizona-based memoir focuses on one woman’s dating life in her 50s and beyond.
At the age of 55, Weissman was a writer and part-time educator in Phoenix with two marriages behind her, a teenage son at home, a pair of stepsons whom she loved like her own, and the painful memories of losing her two daughters in an airplane crash. Instead of dwelling on the past, she began looking for companionship, love, and, just as importantly, sex. After a marriage of 17 years and 17 months without intimacy, the author plunged enthusiastically into the singles’ scene, starting with websites, speed dating, cruises, tepid coffee meetings, and ambitious trips and long weekends. In her book, she intimately chronicles these rendezvous and the wealth of self-knowledge about her own limits and inhibitions she discovered. She figured out that it wasn’t just arousal that moved her to date, even if that meant rejection or heartbreak. At first blush, readers may think the topics addressed in Weissman’s candid memoir are inherently niche. But while there are moments centered on little blue pills or penile injections, both her erotic and not-so-erotic explorations feel quite universal. Among middle-aged and older individuals, there are just as many “players” looking to put another notch on their bedposts. The author’s own goals of keeping things casual led one man to slut-shame her. She shows that being “ghosted”— having a potentially interesting partner just disappear—happens to the young and old alike. And she recounts that politics, money, and family always play a part in looking for romance. Many of the mistakes she made, by her own admission, were when horniness overpowered her judgment. A “lesson learned” conceit follows many of the book’s chapters, but the way these messages often contradict themselves, from Weissman stating she has no idea what men want to acknowledging even what she requires seems prone to change, emphasizes this is not a resource for readers looking for practical help or rules to govern their love lives. This work is rather a vivid collection of personal experiences that will remind the audience that sexual desire at any age is valid.
An honest and revealing account of romantic relationships later in life.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-65181-199-3
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2026
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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