A captivating, detail-rich biography of a “criminal legend.”
A rollicking biography of a female art thief.
In his lively third book about art and crime, Amore, the director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, tells the story of a “fiery, bold, and brash” Englishwoman who stole for nationalistic reasons. Bridget Rose Dugdale (b. 1941) is a “true outlier and major figure in the annals of criminal history.” Born into a wealthy family, she studied philosophy, politics, and economics at several colleges. A position at the Ministry of Overseas Development was “crucial” to her becoming an activist, as was her reading of Marx’s Das Kapital, with its discussion of British imperialism in Ireland. Dugdale was invigorated by seeing Cuba’s revolution in person, attending protests in Manchester, and visiting Northern Ireland. The Bloody Sunday protests were “responsible for her foray into Irish politics,” as she transitioned from “intellectual activist to militant operative.” Englishman Walter Heaton, a married “revolutionary socialist,” became her comrade in arms and, later, her lover. Dugdale’s aggressive activism earned her the nickname “Angel of Tottenham.” In 1973, she broke into one of her family’s estates and stole eight valuable paintings to fence for the Irish Republican Army, a crime for which she received a suspended sentence. With two “local toughs,” she hijacked a helicopter in a botched aerial bombing of a British police station in Northern Ireland. As Amore writes, Dugdale had “elevated her status from gunrunner and rabble-rouser to bona fide terrorist.” In 1974, Vermeer’s painting The Guitar Player was stolen from England’s Kenwood House. Amore believes Dugdale was the thief, but it was never proven. Then came the “biggest theft in the world,” as Amore extravagantly describes it: Dugdale and her IRA cronies brazenly stole 19 paintings from Ireland’s Russborough House, including Vermeer’s Woman Writing a Letter With Her Maid. She only stood trial for the bombing and was sentenced to nine years. Released in 1980, Dugdale has become “something of an icon in Ireland.”
A captivating, detail-rich biography of a “criminal legend.”Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64313-529-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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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