A refreshingly honest and intimate account of a troubled life.
A woman fights to overcome drug dependence as well as repair frayed relationships in this debut memoir.
Summers, who’s currently on the governing board of the nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless, describes an idyllic childhood in Pennsylvania. She was born Diana Rae Essig, and she, her parents, and her two brothers were relatively happy until a job change in the late 1950s uprooted their lives, leaving them in financial turmoil. The author, once a model student, lost interest in school, especially after her father died in 1960. Her life reached another turning point when she became pregnant as a teenager in 1965 and adults convinced her to give the baby up for adoption. A short time later, when she wanted to find her son, she took up sex work in order to be able to pay steep legal fees. Her life spiraled into habitual use of drugs, including prescription pills and meth. Things started looking up, though, when she began dating an encouraging, wealthy man, though he was married. She became an active community member in West Hollywood but continued to struggle with family relationships, particularly with her mother and her mentally ill son. Summers manages to pack a lot into this brief remembrance. She memorably presents details of her early years, including a wonderful variety of home-cooked meals, and paints clear pictures of more difficult times, including her later experience in prison. Some scenes feel truncated, however; readers, for example, may yearn for more about the author’s association with the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club in 1980. Summers’ candid voice also effectively addresses such subjects as rape and drug abuse without relying on graphic depictions. In addition, she frankly discusses her son’s psychological condition as well as occasions when she felt she made serious mistakes. The author ends her book with a “self help guide” and a collection of personal musings to inspire readers to tackle their own problems.
A refreshingly honest and intimate account of a troubled life.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-25241-4
Page Count: 191
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 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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