A deeply felt but uneven memoir of a major life change.
Rankin presents her story of founding an alpaca farm in North Carolina.
The author writes that she was inspired to write this book when a tourist asked her how and why she founded Apple Hill Farm in North Carolina, where she raises alpacas and other animals. In 2000, she was a cancer survivor, cookbook author, and single mom of a 1-year-old when she met her first alpaca, and she was smitten. Before long, she sold her houses in Kentucky and New York and bought a farm in North Carolina so she could raise the companionable animals. However, her venture didn’t develop smoothly; she had no farming experience, and three of her first five alpacas were killed in a horrific animal attack. She and her livestock survived hurricanes and the hard winter of 2009–2010, but medical bills for her animals, which eventually also included donkeys, horses, goats, llamas, and dogs, drained her finances. Rankin found new purpose in learning how to create the symbiotic community necessary to keep all her animals safe. To cover expenses, she currently gives tours and sells products made from alpaca wool. Over the course of this memoir, Rankin does an excellent job of explaining the care and maintenance of the farm’s inhabitants without providing excessive or unnecessary detail. She relates the story of the animal attack, the deaths of the alpacas, and the investigation into what happened particularly well: “My conversations with hunters or farmers confirmed that mountain lions did exist in the area, and that was probably what attacked the alpacas. These men grew up here, they knew.” She also makes clear the strong bonds she has with all her animals and the respect she developed for one wild beast in particular. However, one may wish that the work focused more tightly on the origins and the workings of the farm; Rankin also tries to weave in stories of family conflict and of a contractor’s death by overdose but doesn’t sufficiently explain why this material is included.
A deeply felt but uneven memoir of a major life change.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9798988589815
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 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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