A sometimes-engaging but unevenly executed memoir and exploration of the past.
Sculptor and writer McMahon tells her own story and offers a fictionalized history of previous generations.
The author, who was born in Chicago, tells of growing up with eight siblings. Her artist/reporter father, William Franklin McMahon, covered important events for Lifemagazine—most famously, the 1955 trial of the alleged murderers of Emmet Till; her mother, Irene, was a travel writer. The family briefly moved to Spain in 1957, when the author was a baby, but settled the next year in Lake Forest, Illinois. The large house had an art studio for each of the children, and McMahon started sculpting at age 14. She later attended Hamline University in Minnesota, where she made bronze pieces, took up mountain climbing, traveled to Ireland, and published research on global warming for World Book. The author pursued a master’s degree in sculpture at Yale University while teaching and creating commissioned pieces. After marrying and starting a family of her own, she investigated her parents’ pasts, particularly during World War II. She also looked further back in her family history, she says, even as members of her family were fighting over her father’s estate. Later, the author went in search of white granite to use for her family burial site, visiting an area that figured in the lives of her ancestors: “It took decades to find Alderbrook….Now I could inhale the pine scented air and sift the needles for stories.” In this book, McMahon recounts detailed stories of her maturation as an artist and effectively demonstrates, by recounting fictionalized stories of her family members, that one can make the past ever present. Unlike many memoirs, she intriguingly organizes hers by going backward chronologically, at least in part; as she grows older, her personal interest is drawn continually further back in time. However, readers may find that the lengthy, fictional narratives about ancestors—such as a tale of her great-great-grandfather from the 1800s, weaved into a story of her own father at a rehabilitation center after a stroke—tend to break the flow of the text.
A sometimes-engaging but unevenly executed memoir and exploration of the past.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 9781736767740
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Aquarius Press
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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