A boldly conceived, insightful, but verbose account of a turbulent journey.
In this debut memoir, a woman explores her connection to others, meditating on love and loss, fulfillment and regret.
Eight essays are offered here, each focusing on a specific relationship that impacted Kemp’s life. The opening essay describes a relationship with Tommy, a man whom the author met through internet dating. Kemp describes the arc of their emotional journey, from the initial thrill, “the arousal I felt, that was beyond words,” to the sadness found in separation, “our souls over-lapped and then tore in the leaving.” Other essays are dedicated to the author’s father, mother, and brother. Kemp bravely faces the memory of her father’s death when she was 13 years old. Meanwhile, in an essay entitled “The Creek—Margaret,” the author describes the evolution of a personal friendship from childhood into adulthood. “Wide Open Spaces, Clara” celebrates the freedom of horse riding and the guidance of a former mentor. In her final essay, Kemp turns her attention to her own odyssey by striving to understand the value of her experiences and recalling her entry into the field of psychology. This is a deeply introspective memoir that painstakingly explores the author’s joys and tribulations. Remarking on her father’s death, Kemp writes poignantly: “I think at one point I imagined my last words to you would be something remarkable, meaningful. I’m sorry they weren’t.” The author’s writing is at its most impactful when it is simple yet loaded with emotions. But Kemp is partial to long, unruly sentences in which feelings become obscured by a glut of words: “I was familiar with the sensations that laced me inside, those which accompany sweeping extremes of responses from others that so often stem from a fixed and embedded wounding that will not nudge.” In contrast to this dense language are moments of startling, sage observation: “We have pieces of ourselves, scab-like and ill-fitting, that need to soften and shed if we are to continue deepening into who we really are.” Kemp is a smart writer who explores emotions with a poetic tenderness bolstered by psychological understanding. Unfortunately, the author’s wordy passages make this an often arduous read.
A boldly conceived, insightful, but verbose account of a turbulent journey.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73653-588-2
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Sidekick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
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