A lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy.
Jamin, a veteran television writer, offers a collection of personal essays.
The author has always had a flair for the dramatic; as a child he would summon his mother to tuck him into bed by proclaiming, “Send down the queen!” A natural storyteller, Jamin is best known for his work as an Emmy-nominated television writer for shows including King of the Hill and Rules of Engagement. As he admits, however, “Professionally speaking, I don’t write what I want to write.” In this collection of personal essays, the author relishes the “tension between fiction and nonfiction” that balances reality with the playful spirit of creative writing. While Hollywood celebrities make occasional appearances, the stars of this work are the cast of characters who shaped Jamin’s upbringing, such as his military veteran father, who tried to toughen up his son (who spent his childhood building stick houses for imaginary creatures) by sending him to judo lessons. Another chapter features a cameo from the author’s creative-writing professor, who carried two bags to class—a sophisticated leather satchel that contained the great tomes of Western literature and a brown paper grocery bag that was home to student papers. In addition to all the life lessons, ill-fated romances, and adolescent hijinks, Jamin’s Jewish identity is a recurring theme: “Merry Jewish Christmas” reflects the author’s childhood belief that “Christmas was the greatest party I’d never be invited to.” Readers looking for a stereotypical Hollywood insider’s tell-all will not find much in the way of tantalizing gossip here, and some readers may be nonplused by the book’s conversational, nonlinear narratives that don’t adhere to a chronological timeline. Those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature, however, or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, will find a delightful collection of vignettes. “Even though the details are mine,” Jamin writes, “these stories are all of ours.”
A lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9798988650409
Page Count: 290
Publisher: 3 Girls Jumping
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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