by Deborah Kasdan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2023
Intricate and affecting, Kasdan’s debut finds hope in the saddest of stories.
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Kasdan recounts her older sister’s harrowing struggle with mental illness in this debut memoir.
When the author’s 19-year-old sister, Rachel, returned from a kibbutz in Israel, she radiated “beauty and sophistication.” Drawing on her newfound worldliness, she dazzled friends who stopped by the family home. Three years later, in 1965, Rachel was hearing “frightening voices” and was soon after diagnosed with schizophrenia. After multiple hospitalizations, Rachel died at the age of 59, 36 years after her first psychotic episode. Kasdan writes of her admiration for Rachel during their childhood and describes a family under pressure; moody and defiant, Rachel fought intensely with their parents. The author also conveys their trepidation about being members of a Jewish family with socialist values in the era when the Rosenbergs were executed for espionage. The memoir attempts to excavate the roots of mental illness and to come to terms with the guilt she felt for being unable to save a sibling. A long-term resident of St. Louis State Hospital, where the family felt she received insufficient care, Rachel was raped during her discharge to a boardinghouse. The family decided that she would receive better care on the West Coast, but the plan backfired, leaving Rachel isolated from her family. Drawing on her sister’s letters and poetry, the author attempts to “shine a light” on the “horror and wonder” of Rachel’s life, including “hospitalizations in open and locked wards,” “mind-numbing, tremor-causing medications,” “assaults in hospitals and on the streets,” and homelessness.
Kasdan’s writing is intelligent and probing. In trying to understand why one sibling develops a mental illness when another does not, she refers to the science of epigenetics: “High levels of stress during a child’s early years are believed to be a major factor in expression of rogue genes.” The author’s shrewd hypothesizing is carefully balanced with sororal tenderness, as when recalling her desperate plea to her sister: “Don’t leave me, Rachel. Don’t disappear into being crazy.” Kasdan’s inclusion of her sister’s poetry (which resembles the work of Sylvia Plath) offers an engaging first-person perspective on the stultifying nature of Rachel’s mental illness. In a poem entitled “Water,” Rachel writes, “I go down deep till bright waters / roll over and over / the sinking hulk of my body / covered by each wave one by one.” The memoir poignantly discusses how Rachel’s memory and poetry inspired the author to write as an act of catharsis. Kasdan’s description of how the act of writing now links the two sisters is profoundly moving: “When I sit down to write, I still hear the clatter of her typewriter ringing across the bedroom of our youth.” Although the narrative explores the unbearable pain of having a sibling with schizophrenia, it also recognizes how Rachel’s creativity was fueled by her illness and how that passion proved to be inspirational. The author delves deeply into memory and family dynamics to understand her sister’s diagnosis and, in doing so, finds self-forgiveness for being unable to save her.
Intricate and affecting, Kasdan’s debut finds hope in the saddest of stories.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-1647425715
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
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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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by Bob Woodward ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2024
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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