A wonderfully written and inspiring exploration of a beautiful friendship.
A memoir celebrates a difficult but deep friendship in the Adirondacks.
Not long after settling into a corner of the Adirondacks, that huge wilderness area in upstate New York (Shaw was born and raised in Schenectady, just south of there), the author met Jon Cody. This man would change Shaw’s life in ways both obvious and subtle. Cody was loud, fearless, gregarious, generous—he would literally give you the shirt off his back if you admired it—and always alive with ideas. If anyone was “larger than life,” it was Cody. He was also one-armed, dyslexic, and a prodigious consumer (and dealer) of weed—big blunts all day long—and often other illegal substances. And seldom would he refuse a drink. The dealing supported him, but he was also a very talented and skillful worker in leather. Shaw, meanwhile, was seriously adrift, with vague ideas of becoming a writer. If he just kept imagining himself one (old story, that), someday, he trusted, the Writing Fairy would appear and anoint him as such. Meanwhile, he drifted from job to job (ski lift operator, hunting guide). Cody lived and held court in the Wigwam, a remnant of a building on an abandoned estate, where everyone was welcome: hunters, fishermen, drug enthusiasts, assorted lowlifes, and, of course, the author. Cody died alone there in 2015 after living his life on his own terms, a much-abused cliché but very true in his case. Shaw did what he could to create a proper memorial. The author, by the way, finally did become an accomplished writer and teacher. One imagines dyslexic Cody, whom Shaw used to read to (Jack London was a favorite), being proud, if somewhat bemused.
It’s no surprise that Shaw is a gifted writer—graceful, sensitive, and learned. This being the account of a male friendship, it is important to note that the relationship between the author and Cody was a bromance, not an affair reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain. Shaw is clear on that, but a real love did exist between these two men, and he deftly examines it with regard to Jung and other sources. This memoir is also a vibrant love letter to the Adirondacks, a hinterland of rough weather and encompassing forests and streams that breeds characters to rival (but not match) Cody. This is a book that invites readers to sink into it, to wish they were living in that wild, enticing place; casting a line in those trout streams; or just getting plastered in the bars (so many bars) while singing and dancing exuberantly and having a good friend like Cody—none too sober either. This pal would eventually drag them home or throw a blanket over them on his couch. Finally, the work is a stirring paean to friendship and need. What is this “Crazy Wisdom” the memoir’s title trumpets? readers may ask. Perhaps it refers to Cody’s wisdom of fearlessly owning his life, which gave Shaw the courage to finally take charge of his own destiny. People need heroes to make their ways in this world, even if those heroes are as starkly unlikely as Cody.
A wonderfully written and inspiring exploration of a beautiful friendship.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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