A wise, insightful, and always-entertaining recollection of a journey of self-discovery.
Moore presents a wide-ranging memoir as an artist, spiritual seeker, and overachiever.
The author was a child living in the Bahamas when local Bahamians were “rebelling against three hundred years of British domination”; in response, her English mother and stepfather moved the family to Geneva in 1963. There, Moore was enrolled in a finishing school that she found cold, gray, and stodgy. She resolved to make the best of her situation with a plan: “I conclude that henceforth, I must be the best. I must be so exceptional that no one will overlook me.” Several years later, when she was 19, this drive led her to train in a revolutionary form of physical theater in the Netherlands, which involved regularly flinging herself across the room, into walls, and returning to a primitive state for an attentive audience. Soon, however, she’d had enough of the avant-garde theater world and decided to leave for a few years; she joined another theater group in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1973—this time, to great success. Slowly, however, Moore experienced an awakening by reading the works of various female writers (including Virginia Woolf, Colette, and Anaïs Nin), moved into solo shows, and eventually left the theater world behind. Throughout this book-length exploration of her personal growth, Moore details her relationships with neurotic, artistic men before she decided to marry an auto mechanic, settle down, and have two children. Moore presents an account of quite a notable life spiked with sharp, often funny dialogue, whether she’s detailing the initial courting of her husband or her first sessions as a therapist-in-training later in life: “‘Tell me what’s happening,’ I murmured in a soothing tone, holding my chin in one hand and crossing my legs so I would at least look like a therapist.” Moore frequently recounts experiencing profound moments, seeming to come to grips with great revelations—only to carry on with her life as before. For readers, though, this habit is not frustrating but relatable, and those taking note will walk away with some wisdom.
A wise, insightful, and always-entertaining recollection of a journey of self-discovery.Pub Date: March 1, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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
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
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