A richly detailed and affecting remembrance.
After a woman’s twin brother suffers an episode of mental illness, she reflects on her upbringing and subsequent quest for independence in this debut memoir.
In 1987, 45-year-old Haus’ family was forced to call the police when her twin brother, Marvin, had a breakdown that involved aggressive and upsetting behavior. The memoir opens with the author being quizzed by a nurse on whether there was a history of bipolar disorder in her family. Her immediate response was that “everyone in our family is fine,” but the query led her to scrutinize her childhood more closely. Raised on a farm in western Minnesota by evangelical Christians of Swedish heritage, the twins were shaped by strict religious beliefs and Scandinavian stoicism. Haus recollects her coming-of-age while touching on aspects of Marvin’s behavior that may have signaled his growing mental illness, such as his various “tics and shrugs” and his willful killing of bantam chicks before they hatched. Haus recognized the close bond that she had with her twin but also sought independence from her family. She excelled academically, eventually forging a new life in New England, where she raised a family and had a successful sales and marketing career while Marvin dropped out of college and served in the military before taking on a series of low-income jobs. The author describes how her sense of family duty competed with her drive for freedom as Marvin’s mental health deteriorated and he began to alienate those around him.
Haus’ memoir approaches the topic of mental illness in illuminating ways. She shares her deepest emotions regarding twinship, which she formed in childhood: “We had always been together. How could I run away if he wouldn’t go with me?” Later, Haus allows readers to eavesdrop on her therapy sessions, including an earth-shattering moment when her therapist stated: “being a twin has been a devastating experience for you.” The author astutely counterbalances moments of heightened emotional intimacy with salient factual commentary, as when she notes that “psychologists worry about the intense bonding that occurs between twins,” who “risk seeing their twin not as a separate person but as a part of their own self.” Haus beautifully embroiders the memoir with keen descriptions full of sensory imagery: “We searched for pullet eggs in the woods, played with the baby mice in our granary, or pulled our fingers through the water in the cows’ water tank to screen out the spongy moss.” One minor criticism is that the section describing the author’s childhood is drawn out a bit too long, but Haus’ meticulous attention to detail does form a comprehensive portrait of their family life. Although the memoir can be heartbreakingly sad, it builds to a stirring moment of understanding when the author fully recognized her brother’s determination in the face of what was later diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Overall, this sharply conceived book shines a light on the challenges of twinship and offers a deeply personal account of a family coping with mental illness.
A richly detailed and affecting remembrance.Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64-293934-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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
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