A breezy, if not always novel, account of a duo’s international trips.
Evelyn Kelly and her adult daughter, Natalie Kelly, recount their many journeys in this globetrotting guide.
The authors began taking international trips together in 1993, when the two Floridians set off to see 13 European countries in three weeks. Bit by the travel bug, they went on to visit all seven continents, all 50 states, and 88 countries before writing this, their joint travel memoir. In 79 bite-sized anecdotes, set over more than three decades, the Kellys share their most memorable adventures and the lessons they learned. They drank Sour Toe cocktails in Dawson City in the Yukon (advertised as “a shot of whiskey with a fermented human toe inside the glass”) and witnessed a healer cure a man’s headaches with a snap of his fingers in Kathmandu; they also recount a time when Natalie nearly suffered a panic attack while scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. Sometimes the narration shifts to the authors’ friends, such as Jonathan Pait, a U.S. Marine who writes about indoor snowboarding in Dubai, or Casius Peeler, a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in St. Vincent who describes killing a goat for a friend’s birthday. The authors primarily stick to expected tourist fare, and their accounts of kissing the Blarney Stone, visiting Machu Picchu, and seeing the Mona Lisa are not particularly insightful. However, there are also fictional chapters written from the perspectives of Mark Twain, Lewis and Clark’s dog, and a Key West rooster: “This is a great place to be a chicken because no one can bother you, and you get to have your picture taken a lot…I don’t have to worry about being served as ‘chicken legs’ in a local restaurant.” Each chapter concludes with a “Smart Tip” for would-be travelers, and the book ends with further informational material. Overall, the work is best when it detours into less familiar territory, as when the authors write about the packs of dogs that once roamed Bucharest, Romania, at night, or about Natalie’s possible run-in with the Devil himself on Vilnius’s Hill of Crosses.
A breezy, if not always novel, account of a duo’s international trips.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2024
ISBN: 9798991721103
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2025
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
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