A lush story of a genius and his substantial achievements, failures, and demons.
The concluding volume of a comprehensive account of the life and work of the Nobel laureate.
Rollyson, a professor of journalism and prolific biographer—his many subjects have included Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, Lillian Hellman, and Marilyn Monroe—returns to finish his dense, informative biography of Faulkner. The format remains: sturdy chronology, sometimes lengthy summaries of Faulkner’s books (and reviews thereof), his speeches and interviews, nonjudgmental accounts of his private life (he had several extramarital affairs, most notably with Meta Carpenter, secretary for Howard Hawks), and some analysis of his attitudes about race in his work, letters, behavior, and public utterances. (He was a gradualist, but he befriended a number of African Americans, even helping to pay college tuition for one.) Rollyson also provides detailed accounts of Faulkner’s numerous screenwriting sojourns in Hollywood, and he gives him more credit than is usually afforded to the author. (Hawks loved his work.) The current volume also covers Faulkner’s Nobel Prize (1949) and his time, near the end of his life, as writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia, where he learned to enjoy fox hunting. Rollyson shows us Faulkner’s nearly endless struggles with money (his wife, Estelle, loved to spend) and chronicles his acquisition of property to supplement the land he had earlier acquired, Rowan Oak, in Oxford, Mississippi. Also appearing continually are accounts of Faulkner’s well-known drinking problems (Estelle also had issues), which will make many readers wonder how he accomplished as much as he did. Rollyson concludes with a swift, sad summary of Faulkner’s death (heart attack) while he was a resident of a “drying out hospital.” Although the author does not create a galloping narrative, he is relentless and all-inclusive in his research, and Faulkner aficionados will be grateful for his diligence.
A lush story of a genius and his substantial achievements, failures, and demons.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8139-4440-1
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Univ. of Virginia
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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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