A heart-wrenching but lengthy remembrance of a loved one.
In this memoir, a woman recalls her husband’s dementia.
Marple met Gary in 1981 at work—she was 34 and he was 44 years old. Though the attraction was immediate, both had their reservations about getting married: Gary was twice divorced with children, and the author was happily single and independent. Seven years later, the couple wed, and by 2010, they were enjoying being mostly retired, planning to split each year between a house on the midcoast of Maine and a condo in Sarasota, Florida. The changes in Gary started slowly: occasional misplaced objects, incoherent speech, and other behaviors that could be attributed to aging. But when the couple eventually sought medical help for Gary, they learned of a gradual brain bleed and the strong possibility of dementia. As the years passed, the changes in Gary grew more pronounced. He lost his driving privileges as well as his private pilot’s license, occasionally disappeared without warning, and easily got emotional and temperamental. Marple, who had sold her small press but still wrote books, found herself putting her own dreams on hold to become Gary’s full-time caretaker—even with paid help, his mood swings and behaviors became increasingly challenging to navigate. In 2019, the author contemplated placing Gary in a residential facility and beginning the process of saying goodbye to the love of her life. According to Marple’s author’s note at the beginning of the book, none of the dialogue has been invented, as she kept meticulous written records of Gary’s final years (he died of Covid-19–related complications in 2021 at the age of 83). Her perspective is refreshing, never shying away from the complex thoughts and feelings she had while watching Gary’s mental and physical facilities gradually and heartbreakingly deteriorate (“His skills keep diminishing even as he’s still a kind and good person with no change in personality”). Through the years, the author developed health problems of her own and had to deal with those while taking care of her husband, and her insights into the day-to-day life of a dementia patient and his spouse pack an emotional punch. But at 400 pages, the detailed memoir bogs down what is otherwise a compelling story.
A heart-wrenching but lengthy remembrance of a loved one.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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