A thoughtful, entertaining exploration of the joys and grittiness of country life.
A creative nonfiction work that mixes memories, family stories, and fanciful thoughts about the future.
Neves was raised on a farm in Freedom, Maine, as the third of four siblings and the only girl. Her early life was one of adventure and tenacious labor, most of which she seems to have enjoyed. Here, she presents a collection of essays divided into two sections, telling tales of life in Freedom, which encompasses her childhood and adolescence, and accounts of her time on a nonworking farm in Palermo, Maine, where she and her husband live with their four children. Readers soon discover that a simple tale, in Neves’ hands, has many parts, including musings about connections—between people and between people and nature. She also includes anecdotes from family lore, including the opening tale about a rebellious act by her father when he was a child in grade school: “Like many of my father’s stories,” Neves says, “this one has the texture of a well-constructed fable, driven by an undercurrent of vigilante justice, and a message of empowerment.” The author displays a similar sense of justice in these pieces, but she also questions, pulls apart, and analyzes actions and reactions of herself and others. She does so with empathy and occasional self-effacing, acerbic humor; for instance, while pondering her parents’ encouragement of independent thinking in their children, she notes that she’s a “freethinker”: “Not in the sense that freethinkers make decisions and form opinions based on reason and fact, but in the way that my thoughts and ideas were generally free from the constraints of reality.” In these pages, Neves reveals herself as a wordsmith whose long, twisty sentences are consistently enticing; one highlight is her story of a pig named Priscilla who was truly committed to her task of clearing weeds. Because memories can change over time, Neves says, she writes “in the hope that words have more power than things, that they will last at least as long as I do.”
A thoughtful, entertaining exploration of the joys and grittiness of country life.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-943424-62-7
Page Count: 155
Publisher: North Country Press
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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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