by Judy Muller with Cheri Mathews ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2022
A chilling yet compelling look at overcoming the desolation of addiction.
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An unusual biography/memoir reveals the devastating consequences of one woman’s abusive family.
According to author and journalist Muller, the first things she learned about Mathews were that she was a restaurant server and on lifetime parole for murder. Using a series of interviews with Mathews and her friends, family, and former cellmates, blended with autobiographical essays the parolee wrote while incarcerated, Muller crafts a life story redolent with trauma, second chances, and the ability to endure. Mathews was born in California in 1960 to two abusive parents; her mother left the family when she was 3 years old. Drinking and drugs came into Mathews’ life before she was even in high school, but after a stint in the Army and an abusive marriage, she succumbed to multiple vices, including alcohol, cocaine, meth, and gambling. She could not keep a job, money, or custody of her kids as she oscillated among unstable housing, meth binges, and dangerous characters. Even murdering self-confessed killer Frank Belize in her own house (with her children upstairs) could not catalyze her healing. It wouldn’t even be for that homicide that she eventually served over 10 years in prison. She was convicted of the murder of her boyfriend David Hepburn. As Mathews continued to hit bottoms (she says her “bottoms have bottoms”), the stains of her abusive family, poverty, and institutional neglect eroded her ability to stay sober, employed, and present for her kids. Mathews’ life is nothing to envy, but her survival, vividly recounted in these pages, is mind-boggling. Muller meticulously constructs an engrossing account with both Mathews’ voice and her own, drawing readers in until the very end. The tragic heart of Mathews’ gripping story is not so much her crimes but her inability to get herself out of a mindset of deserving her suffering. Mathews’ redemption—which Muller does not oblige readers to accept—came with taking responsibility for her actions while recognizing that “this long history of criminal thinking and behavior, addiction, selfishness, impulsivity, irresponsibility and disregard for society and for human life, along with a lack of accountability,” led her to murder.
A chilling yet compelling look at overcoming the desolation of addiction.Pub Date: April 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66782-658-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Judy Muller
by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
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New York Times Bestseller
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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by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton
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by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton
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New York Times Bestseller
by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
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New York Times Bestseller
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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