A sometimes inspirational, often unsettling account of sexual abuse and survival.
A man recounts his rise from a victim of abuse to an activist and lawyer in this debut memoir.
Salazar-Hobson was never supposed to be an attorney. Born the 11th of 14 children to a Mexican American family in Arizona, Antonio Salazar y Bailon was in the fields from a young age. His family lived in public housing and worked as crop pickers, rising early in the morning to labor in the cool hours before midday. He and his siblings would find respite from their drunken, abusive father—who worked as a timekeeper after losing an arm in a car accident—at the home of their kindly White neighbors, the Hobsons. Even after the childless Hobsons moved out of the projects, they invited the author over to their new home, where they began to abuse him sexually. They would have other adults over to abuse him as well. When his parents finally caught on, the Hobsons kidnapped and “adopted” him, raising him as Tony S. Hobson until he was 16 years old. The abuse continued. It was only in high school that Salazar-Hobson was able to break away from their influence, rediscover his roots through his Chicano farmworking neighbors, get involved in the labor movement, and meet the man who would forever shape his life: Cesar Chavez. The author’s prose is simple and direct, describing his emotional journey in inspirational language: “I was not defeated by the Hobsons. I was not a broken adolescent. I had already managed to recapture the fortification of my identity, and I gathered all my strength to survive…the brutality of my kidnapping and abuse forcing me into an advanced maturity about the world and its evils.” Salazar-Hobson’s account of abuse reads like something from a horror novel. It’s so disturbing and unusual that the more familiar topics of activism, education, love, and family—all covered in the book’s second half—feel somehow incongruous with what has come before. But for all the violence and predation, the author’s story is a comprehensive one, encompassing the issues of exploitation, assimilation, and perseverance found at the heart of the wider Chicano experience.
A sometimes inspirational, often unsettling account of sexual abuse and survival.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-954332-25-6
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 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
SEEN & HEARD
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