Of value to those pondering what happened for the past five years and whether we can truly heal.
The former president’s niece gets in a few more licks.
There is no love lost between Trump and her uncle: “But for him, we would not have become so divided. But for him, a simple lifesaving maneuver like wearing a mask would not have become politicized. But for him, we would not have suffered a mass casualty event in this country every day, for month after month after month.” She reckons that under her uncle’s watch, the nation was forced to endure so catastrophic a trauma that, in essence, we’re all suffering from PTSD. That trauma is an old one, she writes, and here the narrative descends from political and psychological analysis to the recitation of a history that is well known: Our trauma and many of our divisions emerge from the original sin of slavery and the failure of Reconstruction. Because we have not come to terms with that sin, and because racism is resurgent, we have no chance to remedy it. Trump’s approach is a touch scattershot. She has a particular bone to pick with Robert E. Lee, whom she calls “a vile human being,” and even lays a few tut-tuts on Barack Obama for “failing to hold prior crimes to account,” from Abu Ghraib to the fast-and-loose financial shenanigans that led to the Great Recession. She’s at her best, and on the firmest of ground, when she lays into her uncle’s manifest shortcomings: “When your motive is not simply winning at all costs but grievance and revenge, you’re more dangerous than a straight-up sociopath. Donald is much worse than that—he’s someone with a gaping wound where his soul should be.” What’s more, she insists, with good reason, the Republican Party has followed his lead as “an instinctive fascist” to become an enemy of American democracy, yet another source of our mass trauma—our rescue from which will come only with our “facing the truth and feeling the pain.”
Of value to those pondering what happened for the past five years and whether we can truly heal.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-27845-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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