A collection that helps reveal more about the man behind the mythical anthems of the grunge generation.
The latest in the publisher’s Last Interview series focuses on the grunge icon.
Kurt Cobain’s meteoric rise to musical superstardom with Nirvana and troubled descent to suicide in 1994 happened so quickly that it mostly remains shrouded in mystery. This collection pulls back the curtain on how the musician’s mind worked. It’s an odd mix of conversations led by skilled interviewers, including Rolling Stone’s David Fricke and Guitar World’s Jon Savage, and by more amateurish writers. Roberto LoRusso, a DJ for Ontario-based CHRW, titles his 1991 chat “My Embarrassing Interview With Kurt Cobain,” which does include plenty of cringey moments—though LoRusso does nail down that Nirvana’s advance for signing with major label Geffen was $175,000. Even when the interviews lean toward the perfunctory, Cobain’s honesty and genuine engagement make them enlightening. The interviews also show that the narrative in the early 1990s that Cobain was difficult and constantly strung out was not true. Fricke gets him to explain why Nirvana didn’t tour to support its breakthrough album Nevermind. “I needed time to collect my thoughts and readjust,” Cobain said. “It hit me so hard, and I was under the impression that I didn’t really need to go on tour, because I was making a whole bunch of money….So I thought I would sit back and enjoy it.” Throughout the interviews, Cobain discusses his chronic stomach pain and his complaints about how the media covers celebrities, especially after he married Courtney Love. Though his arguments are debatable, including his thoughts on whether alternative artists should embrace their mainstream fans, they are still well reasoned. “I’ve been validated far beyond anything,” he told Savage. “But I would gladly go back to the point of selling out the Vogue in Seattle, which holds about three hundred people. I’ll gladly go back to playing in front of twenty people—if I’m still enjoying it.”
A collection that helps reveal more about the man behind the mythical anthems of the grunge generation.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68589-009-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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
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
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