An intimate memoir of illness, hope, and self-discovery.
Bystrom tells the story of her seven-year battle against functional neurological disorder.
In this emotional work, the author, a Canadian mental health advocate and school counselor, takes readers through her excruciating struggle. In 2013, when she was in her late 40s, Bystrom was a seasoned, successful educator of gifted children. She began experiencing debilitating seizures and unpredictable bodily jerking that started in her lower back. She vividly describes one seizure, which came on suddenly in 2021 as the author and her husband, Dale, were strolling through a specialty gift shop on Vancouver Island: “My arms and legs thrashed. Each time one movement stopped, and I prayed it would end, another started. I was terrified. My head jerked back and forth…then my head crashed back into the glass countertop of the cashier’s desk.” These traumatizing experiences set Bystrom on a multiyear quest to find the sources of her illness—a journey that included many incorrect diagnoses and ineffective medicinal therapies. The answer, when it finally arrived, was that Bystrom was suffering the effects of a little-understood neuropsychological condition that interferes with the brain’s ability to direct the body’s movements. Because FND has been characterized as a response to childhood trauma, Bystrom explored her early life and discovered that she’d internalized anxiety and rejection; her alcoholic father, she says, abandoned her when she was just 2 years old, leaving her to be cared for by her overworked and often distant mother. As result, she says, she never learned how to process difficult emotions and instead stored them in a mind and body that ultimately broke down.
This book is divided into five parts, each covering a “season” in Bystrom’s long journey toward healing and hope. In the seasons of “Trauma” and “Reflection,” she effectively introduces readers to the terrible symptoms of her disease and begins to explore some of the emotional and psychological sources that help to explain their onset. The most difficult section to read, but perhaps the most important one, is “Waiting”; as she was unable to drive, work, or find answers about her condition, Bystrom reveals how family, faith, and a determination to remain hopeful sustained her, even during the very worst of times. The author’s prose is clear and honest throughout, and it bravely invites readers to experience her difficulties in detail, as well as her remarkable resilience. There are parts of the book that might have been omitted or condensed for the sake of a more direct, well-structured story; for example, chapters 18 and 19 could have been combined into one that more clearly and directly explored the dynamic between the author’s FND struggles and her deepening religious faith.That said, the disjointed and sometimes-halting narrative is a chief source of the work's emotional power and feeling of authenticity. As Bystrom tells of waiting for signs of recovery, readers will feel her anxiety and frustration, and it’s difficult not to feel relief for her when her life starts to improve.
An intimate memoir of illness, hope, and self-discovery.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2023
ISBN: 9798989250103
Page Count: 367
Publisher: Stone Tiger Books
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 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
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
