A lively, intimate, absorbing account of the sage of Concord.
A reconsideration of the life and work of one of America’s greatest essayists.
In this new biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Marcus, author of Amazonia, emphasizes the enduring freshness and abiding relevance of Emerson’s writing. As the author explains, his subject’s “eloquent riffs on the primacy of self and the suffocating conformity of the tribe penetrated deep into the American psyche,” and we might understand ourselves better by revisiting his writings and the profound philosophical matters they engage. Marcus provides illuminating commentary on a series of landmark works—Nature, “Self-Reliance,” “Experience,” “Circles”—with each linked to contemporary concerns and controversies. For example, the author frames Emerson’s lifelong grappling with the allure and limitations of individualism in relation to our own complex responses to government intervention and social pressures in the Covid-19 era: “Truly, the pandemic could have been dreamed up as a stress test for Emerson’s ideas. How can we survive apart? How can we survive together?” Marcus demonstrates that the possibility anyone possesses for renovating personal vision and becoming an active creator of the world is Emerson’s presiding subject, and one that he revised relentlessly over a lifetime. We gain an acute understanding of how suffering and loss qualified his most ardent endorsements of visionary renewal. The author’s reflections on Emerson’s personal life are remarkably astute, especially regarding his antagonistic relationship with his father, his longstanding romantic confusions, and his complex responses to the loss of his first wife and his son. Also excellent is the analysis of Emerson’s interactions within his intellectual milieu and the significance that his friendships with such figures as Margaret Fuller and Henry David Thoreau had on his thinking. Though many other biographers have covered similar territory, Marcus’ treatment produces a distinct and memorable sense of revelation.
A lively, intimate, absorbing account of the sage of Concord.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780691254333
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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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