A highly detailed royal portrait for devotees of The Crown.
Voices from the queen’s circle.
Updating their previous oral history of Elizabeth II, The Monarchy, the Strobers reinterviewed some individuals and talked on Zoom and by phone with a few more to round out an admiring portrait of the British queen. Some topics newly addressed include the withdrawal of Harry and Meghan from royal obligations, accusations of racism in the royal household, the succession, and the death of Prince Philip. Respondents share fond memories of Philip while noting his penchant for making brusque retorts that could be found offensive. Lady Featherstone observed that people of Philip’s generation sometimes make “difficult or racist remarks.” Still, she noted, it was hard “for a man of his era to take second place to a clever woman all the time. He was quite a character and he and the Queen were a great team.” Interviewees minimize the effect of Harry and Meghan’s televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, though many agreed that it was in poor taste. “We are not the Kardashians,” Lady Greenfield remarked. “While it is a real event,” Lord Heseltine told the authors, “those anticipating long-term damage to Her Majesty and the monarchy do not really understand the strength surrounding the Queen and the institution, that it is something that one witnesses and feels.” His faith in the longevity of the monarchy is echoed by others, who see a smooth succession from Elizabeth to Charles and then to William and Kate. Fans of British royalty will find much to affirm their affection for the queen. “She is the most constitutionally perfect person you could imagine,” gushed Canon Paul Oesthreicher. “She is just absolutely made for the office: she doesn’t try to interfere; she is a symbolic figure; she obviously enjoys being Queen—she was brought up to it; she’s deeply in the tradition; everybody respects her.” The book is generously illustrated with photographs of Elizabeth from 1935 to 2021.
A highly detailed royal portrait for devotees of The Crown.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63936-191-5
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
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