A disturbing but illuminating work that families of mentally ill people will find relatable.
A debut memoir that brings readers inside the harrowing experience of bipolar episodes.
In 1952, when May was 4 years old, her father left their small Italian town of Via Aeilla and set sail for the United States on his own. May felt a deep sense of loneliness during her father’s absence, and it was with great joy that she stepped aboard the Andrea Doria with her mother and younger sister, Lucia, in 1954, ready to begin a new life in Malvern, Ohio, and, most especially, to be reunited with her dad. But the poverty-stricken family struggled, and the author’s father drank heavily and was subject to rages, while her sorrowful mother turned to religion for solace. As years went by, May focused on achieving good grades to overcome her insecurity. In 1968, during her sophomore year at the College of Steubenville, Ohio, she slipped on a wet dormitory floor and fell on her back. She was treated for a concussion and, afterward, experienced her first severe episode of depression. Several days later, her parents committed her to a local hospital’s psychiatric wing, where doctors subjected her to excruciating shock therapy, which she describes in frightening detail. Thus begins the story of May’s struggles with mental illness, although it wouldn’t be until her second breakdown, in 1981, that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. May proves to be an eloquent and occasionally lyrical wordsmith, as when she describes the visceral experience of her second commitment as well as her terrifying delusions and rages. However, the narrative often jumps back and forth between times and places as it pieces together the trajectory of the author’s life, resulting in excessive repetition of details of family history. She also notes her family’s long-held conviction that her fall caused her mental illness, without explaining how it might have caused it. However, her poignant presentation of her feelings of shame and denial and her ultimately successful battle for self-acceptance highlight the importance of fighting the stigma attached to mental disorders.
A disturbing but illuminating work that families of mentally ill people will find relatable.Pub Date: June 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-68567-0
Page Count: 223
Publisher: Erminia "My Angel" Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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