An unsparing, ultimately uplifting account of turning a crisis into a new view of life.
A memoir recounts the struggles of a woman having nowhere to go but up.
The organizing thread of Enright’s book is an age-old phenomenon: The buttered side of a piece of toast often seems to be the part that hits the floor when the bread slips from the hand (this is probably not much of a mystery since the buttered side is a bit heavier). In these pages, this event becomes a rolling metaphor for Murphy’s law, which is itself a metaphor for the rough buffeting life can sometimes seem to be handing out. The memoir’s central concern is “how do we successfully navigate change so we can move forward, not backward; make our ideas happen; and land butter-side up in the game of life?” In the opening section, the author recalls an intensive care unit where she was comforting a man named Clayton who had recently suffered a serious head trauma and was having trouble remembering the fact that they had built a life together. This was not Enright’s first encounter with head trauma. In 2017, she suffered a “life-altering concussion” when she was hit in the head by a volleyball at her son’s tournament. As the frank chronicle unfolds, the author, who describes herself as an “ordinary person,” must deal with helping Clayton adapt to having an acquired brain injury. In this inspiring and upbeat book, Enright is a wonderfully clear-minded narrator of her own experiences, taking readers right inside a personal trauma that many people would have found utterly defeating. Moving through her vivid account with a smooth professionalism, the author convincingly transforms her own story into a broader series of encouragements for her readers. “I believe you are what you believe,” she writes, “and that the majority of us have the ability to create a new reality for ourselves.” The result is a stirringly believable tale of personal reinvention.
An unsparing, ultimately uplifting account of turning a crisis into a new view of life.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5255-8022-2
Page Count: 248
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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