Powerfully written and provocative, with subtle but pointed polemics often in play.
A posthumous gathering of essays by the first Black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Born in Savannah, McPherson (1943-2016) faced segregation and the proverbial tyranny of low expectations only to defy them with a Harvard Law degree, tenure at several universities, and a MacArthur fellowship. The 1960s, though turbulent, presented promising possibilities: “Opportunities seemed to materialize out of thin air; and if you were lucky, if you were in the right place at the right time, certain contractual benefits just naturally accrued.” One way to be in the right place was to work hard, all the more so if you were one of the “black peasants.” As McPherson writes, while the feeling was “that we could be whatever we wanted,” getting there required overcoming not just “institutional forces,” but also one’s own self-imposed limitations. White supremacy is a very real thing, he writes, but so, too, is the phenomenon whereby some members of minority populations act as “watchdogs over those who challenge, in whatever way, the status quo.” The suggestion, reading between the lines, is that the more-PC-than-thou are impediments just as real as the supremacists, a suggestion that will not go over well in some academic quarters. In a nimble essay that begins, as so often, with the personal—in this case friendship with Bernard Malamud—and expands outward to the universal, McPherson writes of the difficult interactions between Blacks and Jews, who should be natural allies as “spiritual elites” but instead profess antisemitism on the one hand and racism on the other in order to take their places in the American mainstream. While no conservative, McPherson offers sometimes-contrarian views on such matters as affirmative action and advocates otherwise questioning the assumptions of the “prevailing morality.”
Powerfully written and provocative, with subtle but pointed polemics often in play.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-56792-748-1
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 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
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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