An unflinching portrait of a woman rebuilding her life.
An affecting memoir about the steep toll addiction takes on a marriage.
When Killion met her husband, the attraction was immediate and intense. Six months after their first date, the couple married, and over the years they relocated several times around the country with their sons while pursuing fulfilling careers. (He became a successful businessman while she started a clothing line.) Despite the outward trappings of success, the author’s husband has a secret life. Bottles of beer stashed around the house were harbingers of a series of mysterious disappearances and unreturned phone calls; Killion’s husband was followed by the unmistakable stench of alcohol when he returned home. The author realized her husband was an alcoholic and implored him to seek treatment, but nothing worked until she threatened to leave him. Her husband’s sobriety led to unexpected and painful revelations when she learned he had been unfaithful throughout their marriage. As Killion struggled to rebuild trust in her husband, she realized, “the sutures we’ve applied can’t cover the angry gash that has left my heart and my love and my self-respect infected.” Killion’s memoir is a raw look at one of the most difficult chapters in her life, told in sharp, finely honed prose. Her narrative opens with the first subtle hints of her husband’s growing dependence on alcohol before describing the passionate early years of their marriage; this approach emphasizes the all-consuming love Killion had for her husband and illustrates how she was able to minimize the initial signs that something was wrong. Although the author is open about the effect of her husband’s addiction on her marriage, she omits certain details—her husband is never named or given any physical description. This decision successfully keeps the focus on Killion and her experiences. That said, Killion limits references to her own fashion design career to a handful of mentions; further exploration of that aspect of her life would have offered insight into her interests and career trajectory. Overall, though, Killion’s story will resonate with readers facing a loved one’s battle with addiction.
An unflinching portrait of a woman rebuilding her life.Pub Date: May 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781637556412
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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