A strong-willed woman revived by an indefatigable biographer.
The riveting tale of a Jamaican nurse who became a celebrated Victorian.
In 2002, British historian Rappaport discovered a lost portrait of Mary Seacole (1805-1881), a nurse, herbalist, and caregiver who had been as famous as her contemporary, Florence Nightingale. The portrait inspired the author’s quest to investigate Seacole’s storied life, resulting in a snappy biography interwoven with a chronicle of tenacious—often frustrating—research. In 1857, Seacole published a bestselling memoir—Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands—but it was highly selective, missing “evidence of almost all the key landmarks in her life.” Seacole’s race, class, and gender made Rappaport’s research challenging. Born in Jamaica to a White father and a mother with a “mixed-heritage” background, Seacole had no formal training as a nurse, but she learned holistic and traditional medicine by watching her mother. In Jamaica and later in Panama, she gained hard-earned experience treating patients with cholera and yellow fever, earning the gratitude of soldiers, officers, and visiting aristocrats. In 1854, she sailed for England, determined to serve in the Crimean War. Rejected by “official channels,” Seacole nevertheless found backing for her venture. Accompanied by a teenager who most likely was her daughter, she spent 16 months in the war zone treating soldiers. After the war ended, she returned to London, roundly hailed with honors. Besides her remedies—and stores of liquor—she was praised for her generosity and compassion, unlike the overbearing Nightingale. “There could have been no greater contrast between them,” Rappaport notes, “Seacole, warm, open and solicitous in her uniquely Jamaican way; Nightingale, guarded, frosty and with a clinical detachment that did not invite friendship.” In fact, Nightingale saw Seacole as a rival and treated her with hostility. In 2004, Seacole was voted the Greatest Black Briton, an accolade that, in Rappaport’s view, she amply deserved. Readers of this well-constructed portrait will agree.
A strong-willed woman revived by an indefatigable biographer.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-639-36274-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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