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SISTER, SINNER

THE MIRACULOUS LIFE AND MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON

A well-researched portrait of an outsize personality.

In the gospel business.

The charismatic evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944) was a national celebrity as leader of the largest church in America. Largely forgotten since her death, she is revived in journalist Hoffman’s empathetic—and dramatic— account of her life. Raised in a Christian home, the young Aimee claimed to have been infused with the spirit of Jesus when she attended a church of the Holy Rollers in her Canadian hometown. She fell in love with preacher Robert Semple; in 1908, they married, moved to Chicago, and were ordained as pastors, soon traveling abroad as missionaries. By 1910, Robert was dead, and Aimee and their infant daughter returned from Hong Kong to New York, where she and her mother became proselytizers for the Salvation Army. Aimee, though, had bigger ideas: harnessing “the wildness of Pentecostal spirit,” with her mother as a vigilant manager, they drove cross-country to Los Angeles and set up a church in a tent. Preacher, faith healer, and inspiration, Aimee soon amassed thousands of followers whose contributions enabled her to build a megachurch, hire a stage manager to design her spectacles, and rent costumes and scenery from Hollywood studios. Marriage and motherhood (she had a son with her second husband) came second to spreading God’s word. But scandal dogged her: in 1926, she disappeared, turning up in Mexico after a month, claiming to have been kidnapped. When her alleged perpetrators were caught, inconsistencies in her story led to revelations about an affair and fueled accusations of her being a “fame-hungry huckster.” Lawsuits, bitter family rifts, and money problems marred her last years. Hoffman’s discerning biography is as much a work about faith, self-mythologizing, and ambition as it is, in Hoffman words, “a cautionary tale about fame.”

A well-researched portrait of an outsize personality.

Pub Date: March 18, 2025

ISBN: 9780374601713

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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TANQUERAY

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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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LAST RITES

A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.

The late heavy metal legend considers his mortality in this posthumous memoir.

“I ain’t ready to go anywhere,” writes Osbourne in the opening pages of his new memoir. “It’s good being alive. I like it. I want to be here with my family.” Given the context—Osbourne died on July 22, 2025, two weeks after the publisher announced the news of this book—it’s undeniably sad. But the rest of the text sees the Black Sabbath singer confronting the health struggles of his last years with dark humor and something approaching grace. The memoir begins in 2018; he wrote an earlier one, I Am Ozzy, in 2010. He tells of a staph infection he suffered that proved to be the start of a long, painful battle with various illnesses—soon after, he contracted a flu, which morphed into pneumonia. A spinal injury caused by a fall followed, causing him to undergo a series of surgeries and leaving him struggling with intense pain. And then there was his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, the treatment of which was complicated by his longtime struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Osbourne peppers the chronicle of his final years with anecdotes from his past, growing up in Birmingham, England, and playing with—and then being fired from—Black Sabbath, and some of his most well-known antics (yes, he does address biting the heads off of a dove and a bat). He writes candidly and regretfully about the time he viciously attacked his wife, Sharon—the book is in many ways a love letter to her and his children. The memoir showcases Osbourne’s wit and charm; it’s rambling and disorganized, but so was he. It functions as both a farewell and a confession, and fans will likely find much to admire in this account. “Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder,” he writes. “And at some point, I’m gonna have to let him in.”

A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.

Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025

ISBN: 9781538775417

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025

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