In a well-researched book, Chiusano offers fair warning to anyone who might consider voting for his con man subject.
Mr. Ripley goes to Washington.
George Santos is consistent only in his pathological lying. To call him a “fabulist” is to denature the criminal enterprise that, this account amply reveals, motivates Santos’ every waking moment. Much of what we know about Santos owes to Newsday writer Chiusano’s dogged reporting, and the story isn’t pretty. Santos, who logged time in Brazil as a drag artist and check forger, to say nothing of a leech given to bilking his own grandmother (“He did it with others, too. He’d find someone else to borrow money from, and then disappear”), eventually wound up on Long Island, where his lies took on ever more bizarre dimensions. From working as a sales rep for a cable TV service who constantly upsold customers, he concocted a role as a high-level financial wheeler-dealer. Based on his constituency, he “seemed to recognize that a Jewish backstory could be a political tool,” regardless of his true ethnicity. In the rise of Donald Trump, he “saw another Queens native with an outsider chip on his shoulder (warranted or not) who had no political experience but was bluffing and hustling his way to the White House anyway.” How did such an obvious grifter get ahead in street-smart New York? As if channeling Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man, Chiusano suggests that America is a nation of wolves and sheep, where the wolves always win: Even though he’s now under criminal indictment, Santos now claims that his cons add up to “an experience, you know, for a book or something like that.” The author also vigorously criticizes the Democrats’ opposition research, which should have turned up Santos’ record and labyrinthine lies before he ever got close to winning his congressional seat.
In a well-researched book, Chiusano offers fair warning to anyone who might consider voting for his con man subject.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781668043677
Page Count: 320
Publisher: One Signal/Atria
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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
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