A deeply researched work that allows this historic personage to live and breathe.
A fresh biography of the woman who ushered in the Tudor dynasty.
In this intricate and intimate work, Tallis manages to cut through the dizzying ties of royal ancestry to get at the steely personality of Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509), a beleaguered mother whose single-minded purpose was to redeem the status of her son—and herself in the bargain. The author, who has previously written about Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, presents a fully fleshed portrait of a justly celebrated woman who weathered several marriages and royal wars to prevail with the accession of her son, Henry VII, to the throne of England as the first Tudor. One of Margaret’s ancestors was the founder of the house of Lancaster, whose ties would come to define all of her dealings. Wealthy and well-connected, she was a prime pawn in the marriage market, betrothed twice as a child and married to Edmund Tudor at age 12. The author clearly renders this early marriage as a traumatic experience; Margaret got pregnant immediately, and Edmund died in battle less than two years later. Nonetheless, she was a devoted mother, and, through two more advantageous marriages, to Henry Stafford and Thomas Stanley, she skillfully positioned herself during the War of the Roses between the supporters of the Lancasters and Yorks. With Richard III’s usurpation of power in 1483, Margaret actively plotted to render her exiled son to the throne and arrange his marriage to Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, in order to claim legitimacy. Despite a perilous period of being branded “mother of the king’s great rebel and traitor,” it actually came to pass. In 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth, Henry defeated Richard to become king. For fans of British royal history, Tallis is a reliable guide, and the timeline and dramatis personae are highly useful.
A deeply researched work that allows this historic personage to live and breathe.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5416-1787-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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