A poignant and historically captivating remembrance.
Canzoniero chronicles his grandfather’s remarkable life, which took him from Italy to the United States at the end of the 19th century, in this biography.
In 1873, Giuseppe Canzoniero, affectionately called Pepino by his mother, Francesca, was born in Albano di Lucania, an achingly poor village in Southern Italy, tucked away in a “forgotten corner of the world.” Early on, Giuseppe was brimming with ambition and had no desire to become an impoverished day laborer like his father, Vincenzo, or a priest, as his mother had hoped. Instead, he longed to become an artist, and he landed an apprenticeship with successful fresco painter Gustavo Belloni. Still, the dearth of professional opportunity made a decent living all but impossible, so Giuseppe headed for the United States in 1892, where he worked in both California and New York, first as a sign painter—or “walldog” as they were then called—and then painting and wallpapering homes. He persevered through nearly inconceivable adversity; he lost his entire first family—a wife and twins—to what was known as the “Russian flu” in 1893. It’s a heartbreaking tragedy affectingly portrayed by Canzoniero in this endearing homage, which is based on family stories, with some parts imagined by the author. As recounted here, Giuseppe’s life was impressive and, ultimately, inspirational: Against great odds, he became a successful businessman and raised a family. Also, the author insightfully anatomizes the Italian American experience with rigor and subtlety, expressing the paradox of life in America as a place of superabundant opportunity and arbitrary prejudice. The author indulges in far too much granular detail, covering 86 years of his grandparent’s life and the lives of his family members, and, as a result, the narrative can be very slow. Also, the author’s affection for his relative, while sweet, leads him into hagiographical territory, and the story, which he describes as a “tear-filled tale,” can be overly sentimental. However, Giuseppe’s history is extraordinary, and it reveals much about the plight of Italians of his era who made their home in the United States.
A poignant and historically captivating remembrance.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 414
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2023
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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