100% Mariah, unburdened by filler material and written with pure heart and soul for both die-hard and casual fans.
The mega-selling singer chronicles her life via the “moments that matter.”
Carey begins with her early childhood on Long Island in the 1970s, when she used music as a form of escapism and distraction. The fearful youngest daughter of a Black father and an Irish Catholic, opera singer mother, Carey and her two siblings braved physical violence, racial prejudice, and emotional trauma within a turbulent household “weighed down with yelling and chaos.” In the late 1980s, her music career began to blossom, especially after she met and fell in love with Tommy Mottola, who was the head of Columbia Records at the time. Carey openly shares the lurid details of her controlling and emotionally abusive marriage to Mottola in the 1990s. Through her notes on the multifaceted recording process, readers will see the author’s undeniable passion and work ethic as well as her burgeoning self-confidence. Some of the most entertaining moments are encapsulated in dishy free-form anecdotes sandwiched between tales of music career honors, personal triumphs and hardships, and health problems. Carey is at her best when her outspoken personality shines through, as when describing numerous “diva” moments or her harsh regrets about the “collision of bad luck, bad timing, and sabotage” that characterized the making of her disastrous film Glitter. The author also offers appreciative commentary on Marilyn Monroe, Whitney Houston, and Aretha Franklin (“my high bar and North Star, a masterful musician and mind-bogglingly gifted singer who wouldn’t let one genre confine or define her”). Carey frankly reveals the many conflicting emotions she has experienced as a mixed-race woman both energized by and dismayed at the music industry’s cutthroat, often prejudicial landscape. “Lambs,” as her fans call themselves, will find plenty of juicy gems, including the revelation that she recorded a never-released “breezy-grunge, punk-light” album. These intimate ruminations are impressively detailed without being overly concerned with industry gossip or petty squabbles, creating a refreshingly candid celebrity self-portrait. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
100% Mariah, unburdened by filler material and written with pure heart and soul for both die-hard and casual fans.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16468-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Andy Cohen Books/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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
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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