A thrilling and occasionally moving love letter to the spirit of American racing.
An entrepreneur and endurance road racer shares his story of life in the fast lane in this debut memoir.
Lamentably, per Rahill, modern cars have “become another utilitarian mode of transportation” as customers, regulators, and manufacturers have prioritized efficiency and comfort. Yet there was a time in postwar America, the author nostalgically recalls, when “driving was an adventure, a statement of personal freedom, and a chance to experience the exhilaration of speed.” As a lifelong car enthusiast—and the recordholder for the fastest time in a competitive road race across the United States—Rahill blends his personal story with a history of American auto racing. The book’s early chapters focus on the author’s tumultuous childhood in Western New York, where his single mother broke barriers in the 1960s working as a reporter for the Buffalo Courier-Express. The author notes the isolation of his youth, save for the loving relationship he had with his grandmother. Rahill would eventually go to college at the University of Notre Dame, where he was a walk-on for the football team and developed a relationship with the school’s acclaimed president, Theodore Hesburgh. Later chapters discuss the author’s divorce, family life, and successful career as an entrepreneur and CFO of a multibillion-dollar firm. At the heart of the book is Rahill’s participation in the Four Ball Rally of 1984. A “quasi-legal” endurance road race from Boston to San Diego, the Four Ball Rally, which was held throughout the early 1980s, was the last “true competitive cross-continent road race.” Participation was limited by invitation to professional or experienced drivers who had to navigate the variations of geographical terrains and high speeds over a prolonged period of time and were targeted by a nationally coordinated police effort to stop the race.
In thrilling descriptions of the race (which often read like excerpts from a novel with Rahill’s internal monologue and dialogue with his partner Timothy Montgomery), the author details his cross-country exploits as he regularly exceeded speeds of 100 miles per hour. Even with unexpected stops, including delays due to mechanical issues and two confrontations with state troopers over excessive speeding, Rahill completed the race in a record-setting 35 hours and 46 minutes. The author also provides a history of American endurance racing, detailing such contests as the Great Cowboy Race of 1893 (a 1,000-mile horse race put on by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show) and Dwight Huss’ 1905 transcontinental Oldsmobile race from New York City to Portland, Oregon. While the book’s historical narrative may not satisfy the scholarly-minded—the text lacks formal citations—it provides a useful context for Rahill’s race. The book’s exhilarating story is supplemented by dozens of full-color images, from maps and newspaper clippings to photographs of Rahill alongside his favorite cars. Interspersed throughout are poignant reflections on family, marriage, and growing older, and the book also includes an appendix of “Memorable Quotes,” as the author hopes to “pass on some of the things I learned.” While some of the early biographical chapters could have been condensed to make more room for the author’s racing endeavors, this is a fitting tribute to a fading subculture.
A thrilling and occasionally moving love letter to the spirit of American racing.Pub Date: June 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781954779860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Emerald Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
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 2025 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.
