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THE PORTABLE CREEK

SOUTHERN NOSTALGIA AND OTHER SHENANIGANS

A warm, personal tribute to the American South.

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A debut collection of homespun newspaper columns focuses on life in Alabama.

Huffman has written feature columns for various Alabama publications, most notably the Opelika-Auburn News. This compilation presents his previously published work. The volume’s mission statement appears in the preface, where the author describes the book as a “heartfelt tribute to the family and folks who matter a great deal to me.” The columns in the first third of the work recount Huffman’s childhood in the West Alabama town of Gordo, delivering stories about his parents’ divorce, the clan’s obsession with motorcycles, his extended family, and the time his maternal great-great-grandfather fought a bobcat for $50. The middle section of the book shows the author’s range, showcasing content drawn from across Alabama, including the reflections of a World War II glider pilot and a series of columns about a tragic grease trap accident that cost an Auburn 3-year-old her life. Huffman returns to the girl’s story repeatedly, chronicling the community’s efforts to memorialize the child with a pavilion at a local playground and her parents’ support of legislation that would hopefully prevent other families from suffering similar losses in the future. The closing essays in the volume return to Huffman’s personal life, but this time to his recent adventures as a husband and a father of two young sons. A licensed professional counselor, the author always writes with sensitivity when discussing addiction and other difficult topics. His tone is humorous and folksy, but he sometimes crosses the line into sentimentality, including when he writes about the life lessons he learned from his childhood dream of becoming a turtle. In addition, although the nature of a compilation means that some characters and themes are bound to recur, occasionally Huffman’s columns feel overly repetitive. For example, he repeats the same anecdote about his grandfather going to New Orleans and wearing out his shoes on the walk home twice within the span of six pages. Despite some mawkishness and organizational flaws, the author’s genuine “fascination with ordinary people” is clear throughout these heartfelt columns.

A warm, personal tribute to the American South.

Pub Date: March 5, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-48-089626-0

Page Count: 268

Publisher: Archway

Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 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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