A remembrance that’s packed with adventure but feels unnecessarily drawn out.
A pair of newlyweds embark on an epic trip that takes them from California to India in this travel memoir by Lang-Slattery, author of Immigrant Soldier (2015).
In the late summer of 1971, the author and her new husband, mechanical engineer Tom Slattery, set off on what they called “the honeymoon trip.” Leaving Laguna Beach, California, in their Volkswagen Microbus, which they nicknamed “Turtle,” they initially headed south to Mexico in hopes of exploring Central and South America. After struggling to find a way to bypass the notorious Darién Gap, a roadless expanse of jungle between Panama and Columbia, the two decided to board the SS Donizetti and sail from Panama to Barcelona, Spain. From here, their trip took them through Western Europe and North Africa before they headed into Turkey, Iran, India, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. The journey, which comprised almost two years of travel, was a test of the young couple’s evolving relationship as they faced all manner of obstacles—including their own van, which was in regular need of repair. The author also includes photographs, maps, and sketches to illustrate the voyage. Lang-Slattery offers some evocative passages that capture her fascination with the ever changing landscape: “Clusters of dome-roofed, dry mud villages squatted among the rocks. A camel caravan, the beasts joined tail to nose, plodded forward, one after the other, at the side of the highway.” She also includes some illuminating asides, such as when she and her spouse were forced to find a library so that they could look up the word Zouave in an encyclopedia—a window into the world prior to the internet. This attention to detail can prove tedious at times, however; the author gets bogged down in recounting minutiae, as in a description of building a sofa for the Microbus: “The seat back hung from turn screws and was easy to take down at night so we could open up the bed. The padded seat, though heavy, lifted to provide access to the new storage.” This overly meticulous approach results in a narrative that many readers will consider long-winded.
A remembrance that’s packed with adventure but feels unnecessarily drawn out.Pub Date: July 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7342796-3-4
Page Count: 348
Publisher: PacificBookworks
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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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