A worthy, no-nonsense addition to the body of Antarctic exploration literature.
In this debut memoir, a Beijing surgeon travels with a Chinese expedition to build a research station at Antarctica’s highest point.
Author Mao relates his four-month voyage in 2008 from China to Antarctica’s desolate interior with a crew of mechanics, builders and others. Their mission: to construct the first research station at Dome A—the frozen continent’s highest point at 13,422 feet above sea level. The team faced adversity from the start: As their vessel, the icebreaker Sea Dragon, made its way from Australia to the southern continent, it bucked furious, hurricane-force winds and 25-foot waves. After the seasick crew reached the jumping-off point for its interior expedition into Antarctica, it loaded sleds with provisions and pulled them with giant tractors 1,200 kilometers across “the boundless ice sheet” to Dome A. Even in summer, temperatures dropped to minus 40, and cyclonic winds howled, creating blinding whiteouts. The team braved the elements and made it to the dome but not without a few scares, including stuck and lost tractors, which in that environment could have meant starving or freezing to death. That said, they also enjoyed modern conveniences undreamed of by previous Antarctic expeditions—GPS, airline food and even movies on their computers. However, Mao relates his tale with great humility, wondering at his predecessors’ toughness and resourcefulness. The picture that emerges of the Chinese crew is one of impressive endurance, persistence and teamwork, despite the occasional bickering brought on by close quarters and imperfect hygiene. “We are all brothers on the ice sheet,” Mao notes, as they had to depend upon one another for survival. Mao’s prose has some nice flourishes; for example, he describes driving through the blowing snow as like “stepping on shifting clouds.” However, his story, told in diary format, occasionally dwells too much on the details of daily life instead of providing more specific information about the scientific research at Dome A. In the end, he writes, he returned to Beijing a changed man—although he’s does say that he’s still “not able to put the precise content and form of the impact it had on me into words.”
A worthy, no-nonsense addition to the body of Antarctic exploration literature.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483673882
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2014
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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