Intriguing, refreshingly honest, and enlightening, despite some repetitive descriptions.
In this collection of essays, Flaugher reflects upon the 18 months she and her husband spent in Beijing, China, at the beginning of the 21st century.
China had not been the author’s original intended destination. She was about to execute a contract naming her Head of School for the International School of Quatar, and both she and her husband were set to leave Denver, Colorado, in September of 2001. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she applied, with mixed feelings, to head the International School of Beijing. The second interview was conducted in China, and soon afterward she was offered a three-year contract. In June of 2002, Flaugher and her husband arrived in Beijing to begin a new adventure in a country where they did not yet speak the language. Their spacious apartment was in a newly built residential complex; all of the residents were Chinese, and none spoke English. Her neighbors, per Flaugher, often viewed the couple with raised eyebrows as “laowai,” or “foreign devils” (“the Chinese were still quite suspicious of Americans”). She loved the work and made some lasting friendships with her co-workers, but navigating the many differences between her life in the U.S. and the customs of this very foreign land frequently proved challenging. The highlight was a school trip to Mongolia—they trekked into the Gobi Desert, and the author got to ride a Bactrian (two-humped) camel. Flaugher’s prose is lively and entertaining, though the book’s format—a collection of stand-alone essays—leads to a significant amount of reiteration. The entries about Mongolia are filled with fascinating tidbits about the Nomads, including their love and respect for camels, both domestic and wild. (At watering holes, the wild camels are given protective deference because they are endangered.) The details about the workings of the International school within the confines of totalitarian restrictions are highly informative, and her coverage of the Chinese government’s handling of the SARS epidemic provides a window into how it handled the Covid-19 crisis almost 20 years later.
Intriguing, refreshingly honest, and enlightening, despite some repetitive descriptions.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781665772846
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
