Smart, irrepressible prose that takes on the realities of cancer.
A writer and stand-up comedian who survived a terminal cancer diagnosis confronts painful memories in this memoir.
In his debut book, Rodeo in Joliet(2008), Rockowitz recorded his battle with cancer after being diagnosed in 1998 as having three months to live. He was 28 years old at the time, and his wife was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. That memoir described the author’s seemingly miraculous remission and how his father, who prayed to exchange places with his son, was diagnosed with end-stage pancreatic cancer soon afterward. In this new book, Rockowitz revisits this harrowing time but also recalls other memories, extending back to his childhood, which he feels have shaped him as a person. The author focuses tightly on relationships with others, from school friends to people he met after founding the Best Medicine Group, which aimed to bring live comedy into the homes of the terminally ill. Rockowitz describes heartbreaking moments, such as learning of the death of a close friend who was also one of the first patients that Best Medicine entertained. However, at other points, he recounts jaw-droppingly absurd moments, as when he went looking for “the largest dildo” in Manhattan as a joke gift for a cancer patient. Rockowitz’s prose style is terse and choppy, with paragraphs that are often only one sentence long and can resemble poetic verse: “The hospitals, the doctors, the pills, the poisons, the needles, the scans, the pain, the pain.” Readers who acclimate themselves to these stylistic quirks, though, will be rewarded with some darkly hilarious accounts, such as when he decides to write a letter to be given to his son in the event of his death: “By the time you read this it’s possible Mom has already gotten remarried…I just hope he’s not one of those dicks with the big calves and the ponytail….That guy’s probably into cycling too. That’s my worst nightmare for you.” At other points, Rockowitz also succeeds in echoing the yearnings of many cancer sufferers. The result is an offbeat but truly arresting survival memoir.
Smart, irrepressible prose that takes on the realities of cancer.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
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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