An affectionate, appealing, and unsentimental look back on an all-American boyhood in the ’50s.
In this memoir, a man describes a childhood and adolescence spent in a small town in New York state, with a focus on 1959.
O’Donnell, who achieved prominence as a trial lawyer, introduces this slim volume by explaining he had an impulse in the late 1990s to record his childhood memories. The author actually lost, recovered, and revised the manuscript twice before finally publishing it. Given that history, the repetition of certain details is understandable. O’Donnell grew up in Averill Park, near Troy, in central New York state. He puts special emphasis on people, events, and (most of all) the ambiance of 1959, a glorious year pivotal for the author as an adolescent Irish Catholic having a triumphant (largely crisis-free) coming-of-age. Reflections are almost always fond even though O’Donnell’s title references that among his schoolboy peers, he was habitually bullied and picked last for sports (as much as he adored baseball and football) because of his pudgy frame. In contrast, the author’s dad was a fitness buff, a Depression-hewn World War II veteran, hard worker, ethical liquor store proprietor, and solid family man. O’Donnell’s mother was liberal-minded and literate; late in life, she went back to school and became a librarian. The family’s Roman Catholicism is rarely a source of repression; in fact, the author writes that, under different circumstances, he could have entered the priesthood. In this charming, upbeat portrait with rich, evocative details, there is also a nurturing maiden aunt, a strict but cherished schoolteacher, a family ghost (“She had dark hair, high cheekbones, and a pleasant smile”), hunting and fishing trips with nearby eccentrics, early TV favorites, and the resigned acceptance of anti-Catholic prejudice among the area’s Methodists and critics of President John F. Kennedy. Finally, O’Donnell recounts that he overcame his challenges to make Eagle Scout. An epilogue indicates that adult life was not entirely rosy for the storyteller, but there are no rueful or bitter associations with his boyhood—especially 1959. Author William Kennedy (Ironweed), athletes Mickey Mantle and Jack Dempsey, and entertainer Jerry Lewis make cameos in this sweet-spirited memoir that skillfully resists becoming mawkish. The engaging book may remind readers of Tom Brokaw’s A Long Way Home (2002) and Bob Greene’s Be True to Your School (1987).
An affectionate, appealing, and unsentimental look back on an all-American boyhood in the ’50s.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2022
ISBN: 9781644282953
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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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