A captivatingly eloquent memoir.
An award-winning journalist tells the story of how she came to terms with a complex identity that forced her to navigate issues of gender, race, and class.
In 2017, Philippine-born "Harvard Man" Talusan returned to her alma mater as a woman. She had first arrived there in 1993 as the male “anak araw,” an albino her grandmother believed would one day live among other whites in America. A former child star, Talusan learned early on that she could parlay whiteness into a source of money and power. She also learned that her difference was more than skin deep: In sixth grade, she became “hopelessly smitten” with a male friend. The homosexual crushes continued through adolescence along with vague stirrings of a secret desire to be a woman who, like Lea Salonga in Miss Saigon, was “capable of getting a rugged and kind [American] man to fall in love with her.” Talusan moved with her parents to California, where she earned a scholarship to Harvard. There, she quickly learned the benefits of using her albinism and indeterminately Asian features to pass for an exotic-looking Caucasian. She came out as gay, but she was unable to reconcile her desire for womanhood with her life as a gay male. During her final year in college, she developed a sexually explicit one-person show called Dancing Deviant, and she began a relationship with a white, upper-class MIT professor who introduced her to a life of privilege. However, she soon realized that his desire for her ran counter to her own wish to be desired as that “beguiling woman who stared at me from the other side of the mirror whenever I put on makeup.” The author examines queer otherness with relentless honesty, and she investigates how accidental whiteness did not automatically lead to the fairest outcomes, either for herself or others.
A captivatingly eloquent memoir.Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-56130-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
The choir is sure to enjoy this impassioned preaching on familiar progressive themes.
Essays on current political topics by a high-profile actor and activist.
Milano explains in an introduction that she began writing this uneven collection while dealing with a severe case of Covid-19 and suffering from "persistent brain fog.” In the first essay, "On Being Unapologetically Fucked Up,” the author begins by fuming over a February 2019 incident in which she compared MAGA caps worn by high school kids to KKK hoods. She then runs through a grab bag of flash-point news items (police shootings, border crimes, sexual predators in government), deploying the F-bomb with abandon and concluding, "What I know is that fucked up is as fundamental a state of the world as night and day. But I know there is better. I know that ‘less fucked up’ is a state we can live in.” The second essay, "Believe Women," discusses Milano’s seminal role in the MeToo movement; unfortunately, it is similarly conversational in tone and predictable in content. One of the few truly personal essays, "David," about the author's marriage, refutes the old saw about love meaning never having to say you're sorry, replacing it with "Love means you can suggest a national sex strike and your husband doesn't run away screaming." Milano assumes, perhaps rightly, that her audience is composed of followers and fans; perhaps these readers will know what she is talking about in the seemingly allegorical "By Any Other Name," about her bad experience with a certain rosebush. "Holy shit, giving birth sucked," begins one essay. "Words are weird, right?" begins the next. "Welp, this is going to piss some of you off. Hang in there," opens a screed about cancel culture—though she’s entirely correct that “it’s childish, divisive, conceited, and Trumpian to its core.” By the end, however, Milano's intelligence, compassion, integrity, and endurance somewhat compensate for her lack of literary polish.
The choir is sure to enjoy this impassioned preaching on familiar progressive themes.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18329-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A fascinating and funny look at the life of a famous actor who found further fulfillment through giving back.
The actor discusses his career on the stage and in film, and his life focusing on the value of art and public service.
Now 66, Stern, perhaps best known for his roles in Home Alone and City Slickers, is no longer "the precocious teenager who moved to New York as a seventeen-year-old, at least ten years younger than all of my friends, the youngest dad at all my kids’ school events.” As he discusses his childhood in Maryland, his introduction to the theater, and writing a musical version of Lord of the Flies, the author's love of the work shows through on every page—as does his family’s legacy of a strong work ethic (his mother told him, “I don’t care what you do but you are out of this house when you turn eighteen”). Realizing that “academics were not going to get me anywhere,” he committed to acting. After some early stage work, he began working in films, appearing in a number of critically successful projects in the late 1970s and early ’80s, including Breaking Away and Diner. Stern analyzes key moments in the development of his craft, as well as the twists and turns of a very public life, which included work with the USO and the experience of being sued for $25 million over a TV show. Although readers may pick up the book to learn more about Hollywood, his focus on his work-life balance brings some of the most memorable passages, from his narration and directing work in the TV series The Wonder Years (which included no on-screen billing), which helped him overcome his childhood dyslexia, to his experience working with the Boys & Girls Club and his lifelong focus on public service.
A fascinating and funny look at the life of a famous actor who found further fulfillment through giving back.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781632280930
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
