An affecting memoir of a disturbing childhood and adolescence.
In Trautman’s memoir, she recounts the abuse she suffered at the hands of her family in Portugal and Canada.
Trautman—born in 1950s Portugal as the result of an affair between a married man and his housekeeper—was not wanted as a baby. Living in a poor village, her maternal grandmother raised her in a one-bedroom house where the young Trautman slept on the floor. While her grandmother gave her love and affection, Trautman was saddened that when her mother, Angelina, would come to visit, she would barely look at the girl. “Maybe this time she would show some interest in me,” Trautman remembers hoping, “maybe she would touch me or even kiss me, but my longing for these things was always crushed. Always the same: she ignored me and wanted nothing to do with me.” Grandma died when Trautman was 8, and she returned to the care of Angelina in Lisbon. Unfortunately, the reunion was not a happy one. Trautman suffered years of physical and mental abuse at the hands of her mother, who deprived her of food and forced her to leave school at the age of 11. Angelina’s boyfriend, to whom the woman lived in thrall, completely ignored Trautman. The girl was raped by her first boss before she was even a teenager. Trautman attempted to continue her education and learn English. At 18, she escaped to Canada, where she found a safe new home with her aunt Licinia…or so she thought. Licinia’s household had its own toxic dynamic, and her husband, Roberto, turned out to be just as predatory as Trautman’s boss. After so much trauma, did Trautman have it in her to escape again?
Trautman’s prose, urgent and suspenseful, captures the terror of her experiences in a way almost reminiscent of horror fiction. Here she finds herself trapped in a car with her uncle as he attempts to seduce her: “The key turning in the ignition all of a sudden made me look up at him. There was a wild look on his face that terrified me. ‘Dead? You wish you were dead? Well so do I. Let’s be dead together, this seems like a good day to die,’ he shouted and I covered my ears with both my hands.” It’s a deeply upsetting book, recounting many heartbreaking forms of abuse that Trautman suffered from a young age. She comes across as a resourceful, tenacious child—one who can never catch a break—while showing the reader the ways early vulnerabilities can morph into looming problems over time, even for the toughest of individuals. The final section of the book ends with positivity. Trautman’s path, which features discussions of her faith in God, may not feel completely satisfying for every reader, but the fact that she was able to gain closure for herself is an inspiration.
An affecting memoir of a disturbing childhood and adolescence.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-55-382974-2
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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