Tickled to find himself a national treasure at 99, Van Dyke takes some of his own advice: “Find Your Passion in Your Past.”
Anecdotes and advice from a long, happy, and fairly familiar life.
The third memoir from Van Dyke covers similar ground as the previous two; now he is approaching 100 instead of 90, but before that, not much has changed. (That’s the thing about the past.) What’s new is the angle: the hundred chapters are titled for their takeaway: from “Don’t Act Your Age” and “Make Your Own Rules” to “You Can’t Protect Your Survivors” (a sad vignette about the late Gene Hackman) and “Find Your Arlene.” Van Dyke’s 46-years-younger wife, Arlene, is the sine qua non of his life and this book: “Well over three-quarters of the memories in this book were foggy in my brain but crystal clear in hers,” due to many previous retellings. These recollections include stories of shoveling ice and coal in pre–World War II Danville, Illinois, 15-cent movies, being edged out of a spot on Ed Sullivan’s show by President Harry Truman’s daughter’s tepid opera singing, and recollections from the sets of Bye Bye Birdie, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, and many more. If the upbeat tone of his preceding books prompted some critical calls for more conflict, emotion, and introspection, those are answered here by stories with a darker tone. These include a phone call from Cary Grant on LSD, an anxious encounter with a possibly predatory elementary school teacher, a long-running on-set prank involving walnuts, and a 20-year toothache, as yet not fully resolved. “Remember Honestly” corrects a childhood anecdote told in the previous book with more candor about the extreme stinginess of Van Dyke’s father. “I was so intent on putting a smile on my life experiences that I nudged the little hint of darkness out of the story.” In addition to his wife, the supporting cast includes the author’s 73-year-old son, Barry, and his 41-year-old personal assistant, Jimmy, who uses they/them pronouns and has a second career as a WWE-style wrestler—quite a breath of fresh air. Among the most poignant chapters are “You Will Not Be Alone,” which recounts the 1987 death of Van Dyke’s first grandchild at the age of 13, and “Read While You Can,” in which we learn that advanced dry macular degeneration has ended his life as a reader. Not as a writer, though!
Tickled to find himself a national treasure at 99, Van Dyke takes some of his own advice: “Find Your Passion in Your Past.”Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9781538777909
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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