A captivating account of a complex chapter in Chinese history.
In this debut memoir, Wang recounts life in northeast China during the turbulent years of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and his attempts to find purpose in the wake of its disintegration.
The author’s family suffered under the tyranny of Red Guard harassment, especially Wang’s mother, who was labeled an enemy of the state as a result of her privileged family background. Nonetheless, the author was an eager devotee of Mao’s philosophy and “ready to assume my role in emancipating humankind.” In 1975, as a teenager, he was sent to TianXi (the name means “heavenly happiness”), a peasant village in Inner Mongolia, for radical reeducation, an experience designed to destroy any allegiance to authority, including his family’s, that competed with Mao’s. However, his encounter with this “naturally harsh landscape and difficult lifestyle” was never fully realized; the revolution died with Mao less than a year later, and China’s new leader, Deng Xiaoping, ushered in a new regimen of reforms aimed at modernization. Wang was brainwashed by this “gigantic vortex” of political ideology, a predicament lucidly depicted by the author: “My inner voice served to suppress any encroaching doubts even before they could surface. I, like millions of others all over China, honestly believed in this course, the one that would lead to a better world for humankind.” The author would have to reinvent his own sense of purpose as well as his understanding of the character of his homeland, an especially difficult undertaking since he moved to the United States to pursue his studies—a “culture-crossing expedition”—and settled with a wife and child in North Carolina.
Wang’s remembrance is a deeply thoughtful one, communicated in prose full of studious concentration and careful precision. His reflection on the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution on China is well considered and searching, and he exposes the nuanced, myriad ways it left an indelible impact on the tenor of Chinese daily life. “In the post-Mao era, this social rift has grown into a subtler, but more profound phenomenon: aloofness between people. It is present between almost any two people. For instance, when you go to a restaurant in China and the waitress comes to you with a stern face, do not take it personally. Emotional distancing was—and still is—a norm within the country.” His life is both inspiring—he eventually finds success in American corporate life—and cinematically eventful. Swallowed by the forces of history and then unceremoniously spit out, he finds his own destiny. The best of Wang’s memoir is his consideration of the abrupt shift from one newly adopted cultural identity to another and the subsequent feelings of dislocation and distrust. The author avoids any political proselytizing. In fact, he expresses a respect for the intentions of Mao, however disastrously executed. This is not principally a political tract but rather a personal one, though it deftly raises questions of a grand cultural and historical nature.
A captivating account of a complex chapter in Chinese history.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-948598-51-4
Page Count: 205
Publisher: Open Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 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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