A somewhat flat rendering of a modest hero.
A biography of the “second bravest” American soldier in World War I.
In the pantheon of America’s World War I heroes, Sgt. Alvin York is usually the first to spring to mind, his exploits having been chronicled in at least three biographies and a 1941 movie starring Gary Cooper. However, it was Pfc. Frank Gaffney who, in September 1918, single-handedly charged an entrenched German position along the Hindenburg Line, resulting in the capture of 80 German troops and a Medal of Honor for Gaffney. The 34-year-old infantryman was near Bony, France, when his company engaged the Germans. One sergeant had described him as an “indifferent soldier” in training camp, but under heavy German shelling, he turned into “a veritable human hurricane,” charging the German trench with “his Lewis gun, pistol, and whatever ammunition and grenades he could carry.” According to Strasburg, the breach he created in the Hindenburg Line “allowed soldiers to funnel into the massive main trench from where they rolled up the German resistance.” He lost the use of his arm to a bullet wound sustained in another engagement with the Germans, but he returned to the U.S. a hero. Once home, he had to deal with “unwanted celebrity status and navigating the red tape to obtain his government benefits.” One interviewer reported: “He will look you straight in the eye and deny that he was ever in the war.” But Gaffney wasn’t given much to introspection or rumination about his experiences. “The work of a soldier is dangerous, but I enjoyed it….If I had come back whole, I would have said the experience did not do me any harm,” he told another interviewer. Strasburg’s breezy biography ably captures Gaffney’s bravery but is somewhat short on revealing details about the man. The author ably notes Gaffney’s “renowned sense of humor” and disinclination to fame, but his portrayal of his subject feels incomplete. Still, military buffs will find memorable information here on Pfc. Frank Gaffney.
A somewhat flat rendering of a modest hero.Pub Date: June 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-387-85592-6
Page Count: 249
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2022
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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