A commemorative celebration and a must-have for fans.
A retrospective of the first decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race, from the voices of those who made it a standout success.
While working for the Los Angeles Times, Fernandez was the first mainstream journalist allowed on set for the show’s first season, and her entertaining report encompasses a decade of insider details from the award-winning series. The origin story intertwines with contestant gossip, competitive tension, and over-the-top melodrama, all of which demonstrate the evolution of the show from its initial “classic counterculture” aesthetic to a cultural juggernaut. Delving into gay history, the author describes drag’s important Wigstock era, which proved formative to drag queens nationwide, including RuPaul, whose then-persona morphed from “Black hooker Soul Train dancer” to “supermodel.” The heart of the text lies in the candid, witty commentary of show producers, queens, judges, and RuPaul himself, as each shares memorable moments from the first 10 seasons. Several Drag Race alumni spotlight iconic moments fans will recognize—e.g., Vanessa Vanjie Mateo’s Season 10 runway elimination walk, Jinkx Monsoon’s Little Edie Snatch Game impersonation, Willam’s “juicy moment” disqualification, and Valentina’s masked lip-sync challenge, all of which went on to become viral sensations. Other contestants offer more meditative perspectives. Season 9 winner Sasha Velour reflects on her emotional connection to drag; Season 3 contestant Raja remains nostalgic for the spontaneous, exploratory, “no receipt” rawness of what drag used to be; and Season 1’s Rebecca Glasscock admits that drag gave them the courage to resist suicidal urges. Though the contributors embody diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and outward appearances (both in and out of drag), their symbiotic relationships are vividly captured as they evolved on screen. As the art of drag has recently become a major part of a particularly difficult political moment, retrospectives like this one reiterate its critical, long-standing role in the LGBTQ+ community.
A commemorative celebration and a must-have for fans.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781538717660
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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