An inspirational homage to a trailblazing humanitarian entrepreneur, dedicated family man, and “endless optimist."
A health care innovator shares his pioneering life in Jones’ memoir.
The author’s candid autobiography vividly captures the life of a self-made businessman with a celebrated reputation for immense contributions to the health care industry. The memoir—constructed from a series of nearly 40 personal interviews with Jones, his wife, Betty Ashbury, his friends, family members, and colleagues by journalist Bob Hill—chronicles the businessman’s life, starting with his humble beginnings in Kentucky. In the blue-collar town of West Louisville, Jones was raised as one of six children in the 1930s. His mother, Elsie, worked nights in a laundry, while his father, Evan, a steelworker, carpenter, and handyman, struggled to find work toward the end of the Depression. Jones’ studious diligence in school garnered him an ROTC scholarship to the University of Louisville before he graduated and began a three-year stint at sea with the United States Navy. This military service honed his natural leadership talents: At age 30, armed with a Yale law degree and married to his college sweetheart, Betty, he and fellow lawyer Wendell Cherry each borrowed $1,000 to open a nursing home together. That business would become Extendicare, Inc., which then blossomed into the hospital chain and health insurance behemoth Humana, founded on Jones’ core principles of balanced quality and productivity. The company’s success afforded generous contributions from the Jones family to a variety of causes. Humana went on to create a center for artificial heart implantations, and Jones’ philanthropic ambitions were further realized with the establishment of a 4,000-acre, environmentally secure parklands area. Additionally, in keeping with his and his wife’s modest demeanors, they anonymously donated millions in personal and family foundation grants to educational programs.
A heavily detailed tome, the book lingers over anecdotes and striking reminiscences regarding the watershed events of Jones’ life, realistically portraying both the good and the bad. He is open about the moment he realized his entrepreneurial venture in nursing homes had become a runaway success and about the accomplishments of his children. He’s equally revealing when describing sharing cramped quarters with Betty in a metal, coal-heated Quonset hut in Connecticut while he attended Yale, his and his Humana executives’ experience of the horrific, debris-strewn Manhattan streets on Sept. 11, 2001, and visiting a Romanian AIDS hospital’s children’s ward (“Boone Powell and I lifted some of the children from their cribs and held them in our arms, a simple act that seemed to provide comfort, but which was rarely performed in the overcrowded and understaffed locations”). Readers in the health care industry and general business arenas are certain to glean a great amount of rousing encouragement from the innovative concepts and leadership lessons Jones became known for and will learn how, through simple acts of generosity, philanthropy can be beneficial to both one’s business reputation and one’s soul. Jones died of cancer in 2019. His legacy continues through the Humana health care network and in this book, in which friends and family celebrate his life and work.
An inspirational homage to a trailblazing humanitarian entrepreneur, dedicated family man, and “endless optimist."Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781938462634
Page Count: 550
Publisher: Old Stone Press
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2023
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
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
