A deftly rendered portrait of a tragically toxic mother-daughter relationship.
Thelen-Heidel recounts a childhood shaped by her mother’s destructive decisions in this debut memoir.
Bridey Thelen moved a lot as a kid; by the time she graduated high school, she had attended 22 schools. The reason was her mother’s poor judgment concerning men—poor when it came to choosing them, poor when it came to keeping them, and poor when it came to keeping Bridey safe from them. From a silver school bus in Juneau, Alaska, to a motel in South Lake Tahoe, California, and many points in between, the moves frequently came without warning or explanation, leaving the author adrift and lonely as her relationships with friends, relatives, father figures, and even her dog—with anyone, in fact, besides her mother, the drug-using, party-loving Frankie—were abruptly and unceremoniously severed. Often left to figure out the ways of the world on her own (and to defend herself from the occasionally predatory behavior of her mom’s boyfriends), Bridey was forced to grow up quickly, doing her best to protect herself and, eventually, her younger sister, Bephens. Eventually, the author came to realize that her mother’s decisions could cost the smart, ambitious Bridey her shot at the life she wanted—and that Frankie was not simply the person who kept letting monsters into their lives but was, perhaps, a monster herself. Thelen-Heidel’s prose possesses both a charming warmth and a lyrical eye for the world around her. Here she describes seeing one of the many houses she and Frankie lived in for the first time: “A gust of wind slaps sticks and small rocks against the mud stained in patterns on the stucco—some darker and some light— reminding me of the patterns of bruises we’ve tried to heal—some deep and some old. All stained.” It’s a difficult read in many ways, but the young Bridey is such an irrepressible protagonist that it’s easy for the reader to find inspiration amid the squalor and heartache.
A deftly rendered portrait of a tragically toxic mother-daughter relationship.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9781647427382
Page Count: 296
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
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
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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