A lively but underembellished account of an intrepid life.
Comprising 10 short stories, this debut memoir recounts a lifetime of outdoor pursuits in the Canadian wilderness and elsewhere.
Nathom’s book opens with a tale entitled “Swaziland,” in which he recalls growing up in the country now known as Eswatini in Southern Africa. The author remembers a remarkable childhood during which he would dog-paddle under cows that were wading in crocodile-infested waters and guard the cane fields by firing slingshots at hippos. The next story, “First Moose,” adopts a tripartite structure. Here, Nathom describes his journey to becoming a seasoned hunter, beginning in his early 20s with a moose-hunting expedition near Mica Creek, British Columbia. Set in the same province, “End-of-Season Whitetail” focuses on deer hunting in the Kootenays. “Camarones Café” offers an abrupt change of scenery, describing an impromptu fishing adventure after the author befriended some locals in downtown Sayulita, Mexico. Meanwhile, “Death Rapids” depicts whitewater rafting. In “Nakimu Caves,” Nathom’s drive to explore underground caverns led to a brush with the law. “Eagle,” the collection’s most unsettling story, recalls an escapade that resulted in tragedy and a strange, supernatural occurrence. In his scenic memoir, the author’s writing deftly records the procedures of hunting, offering rich, intriguing details. But his prose captures little of the emotion: “Bruce brought his gun up over the back of the truck and took aim. I don’t think he’d even seen the bull yet, but no sooner had he taken up a shooting position than the bull stepped out into the open between the two trees, and BANG.” Nathom has a laconic style that perhaps reflects the quiet poise of the hunter. Unfortunately, it struggles to conjure a sense of the wilderness. He includes a poem by Robert Service that powerfully captures the vastness of the Yukon: “The winter! the brightness that blinds you, / The white land locked tight as a drum.” It is this type of evocative description that Nathom’s writing often lacks. The author delivers scant comparisons, much akin to field notes: “A magnificent mountain that is visible from downtown Revelstoke, an iconic landmark, coated in glaciers and snow most of the year.” Nathom’s exploits are sufficiently varied and engaging to appeal to other outdoors enthusiasts, but they will fail to transport readers less familiar with adventures in the wilds.
A lively but underembellished account of an intrepid life.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5255-8079-6
Page Count: 151
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
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
SEEN & HEARD
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