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WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

REFLECTIONS OF A WRITER'S LIFE...

An earnest and genuine look at an author’s long commitment to his craft.

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A memoir about one man’s life of writing and self-discovery.

In this remembrance, Torra, who was born in 1955, writes of growing up in Medford, Massachusetts. His family, he notes, didn’t have a lot of formal education, as neither of his parents finished high school, but the author ended up dedicating his life to the arts and education. This memoir chronicles his journey from a childhood working long hours at his father’s gas station to becoming a published author and, eventually, a creative writing teacher at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In short, nonchronological chapters, he provides readers with various elements of the story, from childhood on. His father was physically abusive, he says, and his parents would fight frequently. Torra tells of experimenting with drugs in his youth, and he touches on his years of substance abuse later in life and his therapy sessions to confront his feelings of anger. Yet, despite such turbulence, he also devoted a great deal of time and energy to his writing and developed a taste for the Beats, Chinese poetry, jazz, and the collagelike prose of Paul Metcalf. He also details the work and thought processes that went into some of his own works. His 1996 novel Gas Station, he says, was the result of “years of reading, writing, living my life as I supposed a writer should live life.” The appeal of the process, he says, was the feeling of freedom: “For me the best part of being a writer has always been that I can do anything that I want.”  

Although the chapters are rather short, the memoir flows in a natural way. Unburdened by a chronological structure, the author is free to juxtapose a portion on the poet Vincent Ferrini with an account of his own experience playing in a rock band in ninth grade, following these with memories of police intervening in a family fight. Throughout, the work hums with a sense of honesty, as when he explains, quite plainly, he felt he had “no control over anything” during his teenage years. Readers receive insights into his lived experiences but without unnecessary embellishment. Yet, in some places, readers may wish that Torra had included more details to paint a more intricate picture. For instance, the author mentions how he became immersed in punk rock and that part of what he loved about that musical genre was the inviting way in which anyone could dance to it, “even if you could only jump up and down”—a statement that ties in well with the overall theme of how art equates with freedom. However, the finer points of experiencing this music remain untold—what attending these punk shows was actually like, for instance, or how they might have changed over time. In the end, though, readers are sure to come away with a solid sense of how Torra developed, and ultimately maintained, a true devotion to the written word.  

An earnest and genuine look at an author’s long commitment to his craft.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-1-7367202-2-6

Page Count: -

Publisher: PFP Publishing

Review Posted Online: May 12, 2021

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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TANQUERAY

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

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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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LOVE, PAMELA

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

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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

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