A sharply observed, emotionally powerful chronicle that’s as smart as it is moving.
Boulanger’s memoir traces the bond between two siblings from childhood through their adult years amid the devastation of the AIDS epidemic.
The author begins the story of her beloved brother in 1993 with the striking observation that, even though they were both grown adults now, the AIDS virus has shrunk her brother’s body, leaving him “lost in the folds of an over-washed, white hospital gown.” When they were children in 1969, Olaf (as Boulanger lovingly called him) was a vivacious performer and source of joy in their household in Utica, New York. His departure for college—though the school was a mere 30-minute drive away—felt like an epic tragedy to Boulanger and her parents. By the mid-1980s, Boulanger had become a teacher with two children and Olaf had gone on to live in Chicago and Atlanta with his beloved partner, Teddy—it was during a visit that Teddy first spoke of trouble with his stomach. Suddenly, years of news reports and Olaf’s own vague references to something happening among his friends became disturbingly real to the author as Teddy’s illness progressed rapidly to full-blown AIDS. (“It could be just pneumonia,” Boulanger says to her brother about his lover, desperately trying to prolong the inevitable affirmation that AIDS had come into their family’s lives. “People get it all the time.”) Then Boulanger spotted a mulberry-colored spot on her brother’s back that she describes as “gaping” and “raw.” In devastating scenes reminiscent of classic AIDS-focused dramas like Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Boulanger walks readers through her brother’s slow decline and his various hospital stays throughout the early 1990s before his death from the disease.
With each indelible scene in the memoir’s second half, Boulanger digs into the unsettling mix of horror, love, political complexities, humor, and immense sadness that AIDS created. The imagery she crafts from her memories is raw and immensely powerful—readers will surely feel that they were in the room with her, seeing rows of “ashen-faced men with skeletal bodies reclined, their bony knees pointing upward sharply.” Her memoir is overflowing with these tiny details that pack a tremendous emotional punch. Boulanger’s movement through several time periods feels a bit wobbly at first, leaving readers with some basic questions about the family’s history, but by the time she reaches her and Olaf’s adulthood, she is in complete, impressive command of the narrative. So many elements are left simmering quietly in the background, like the rising media interest in AIDS and the subtle, almost imperceptible homophobia that she saw around Olaf. The result is an engrossing, almost suspenseful story, even if readers know how it will end. There is plenty of joy throughout, as well—Boulanger perfectly captures the siblings’ pure excitement for life as young people, and shows how Olaf maintained it, in some ways, until the very end. Her smart epilogue makes a compelling comparison between Covid-19 and AIDS, calling out the dangers of misinformation, isolation, and lack of empathy. Fortunately for readers, Boulanger shows she has plenty of empathy and wisdom to spare.
A sharply observed, emotionally powerful chronicle that’s as smart as it is moving.Pub Date: June 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781955194419
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Mnemosyne Books
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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