An earnest and thoughtful adoption memoir.
Ibach questions how much his adoption shaped his inner life in this debut memoir.
On a November afternoon in 1955, a drunk truck driver killed a motorist in an accident on a rural road outside Nichols, South Carolina. The dead motorist’s wife found solace in the arms of another man, and when their child was born—a little over a year after the accident—he was given up for adoption. Raised by a physician father and a scientist mother in a suburb of Milwaukee, Ibach never felt particularly out of place in his adoptive family, which included a mix of adopted children and the biological children of his parents. “I never felt abandoned, I never felt rejected, I never felt that I had to prove my worthiness to be in and among the Ibach clan,” writes the author. “These emotions never surfaced, and I am content and secure enough to say I am also convinced these emotions are not percolating beneath the surface.” It was not until the author was 58 years old and having relationship trouble with a girlfriend that he first encountered, via couples therapy, the idea that his adoption might have left deep scars on his psyche. The suggestion led Ibach to look back on his childhood for evidence of emotional distress—the occasions when, as a kid, he’d acted out, refusing to eat his mother’s cooking or riding off on his bike to be alone. The relationship with his girlfriend ended, and the author was left questioning his sense of identity. Not long after this period of uncertainty began, the state of Wisconsin opened up its adoption records, allowing adopted children to track down their birth parents for the first time. Ibach soon learned his birth mother’s name, and that she had died many years before. More emotionally confused than ever, he dove into the search for whatever information he could find about his birth parents, revealing the dramatic backstory that he never knew he had. But would he come away from the process feeling any differently about the family who had raised him?
Ibach writes with candor and curiosity, making readers feel as though they’re witnessing the author’s self-exploration in real time. “What is the correct terminology?” he wonders. “Bloodline? Ancestry? Parentage? I’m not sure. My late dad Harold and my late mother Martha were my parents. They raised me. Mom died almost ten years before I submitted my application to Wisconsin for my adoption report…” The author is sure that he isn’t missing anything fundamental—phrases from adoption therapy culture like “Primal Wound” and “Ghost Kingdom” strike him as overly dramatic—and yet his search for answers proves that there’s something to be gained from seeking to understand one’s origins. Adopted readers who, like Ibach, don’t see themselves as victims and yet still carry a sense of uncertainty inside them will benefit from accompanying him on this journey, regardless of its revelations.
An earnest and thoughtful adoption memoir.Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2023
ISBN: 9798989292318
Page Count: 262
Publisher: JuJu Books LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2023
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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