An engaging and instructive history of 20th-century American politics.
Pridmore and Wolf offer a dual biography of Ralph and Marguerite Church, a political power couple whose careers spanned more than four decades.
In 1883, Ralph E. Church was born in Catlin, Illinois, starting life modestly as a “humble farmer’s son.” But he was not poor in ambition—his “eagerness to serve” in public life was evident to all who knew him. After graduating from law school at Northwestern University in 1909, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1916, representing the Sixth District, which mostly covered the city of Evanston. He would serve eight terms in the Illinois legislature, and then, starting in 1934, another seven terms in the House of Representatives. It was a “successful, if unspectacular, political career,” a candid summation typical of the authors’ delightfully evenhanded style. When he died suddenly in 1950—he suffered a heart attack while testifying on Capitol Hill—his wife, Marguerite, who had for so many years served as his “indispensable political strategist,” won his vacated seat. A worldly and educated woman, and a fiercely independent thinker, she would serve for six terms and establish herself as a force to be reckoned with, earning a reputation as a fiery “disrupter.” While neither Ralph nor Marguerite are household names, they were both remarkably astute politicians and people of impressive character, as well as fascinating markers of a vanished time. Marguerite’s story is especially captivating—when she accepted the GOP nomination in the wake of her husband’s death, she said, “If a man had been nominated and made a mistake, you would have said ‘He is stupid.’ If I make a mistake you will say, ‘She is a woman.’ I shall try never to give you a reason to say that.” The authors’ command of the historical material is impressive, though sometimes they overwhelm the reader with a haze of minute details. Nonetheless, this is an immersive portrait of the political landscape over a considerable stretch of American history, brimming with “lessons of service, heart, and advocacy.”
An engaging and instructive history of 20th-century American politics.Pub Date: Dec. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9798985788655
Page Count: -
Publisher: Master Wings Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2024
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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