A remarkable account of the author’s journey through trauma.
Katz recounts her struggle as the child of Holocaust survivors and the fraught psychological inheritance that entailed.
The author was born in 1955 and largely raised in the Queens borough of New York City, but her emotional world was shaped by the ravages of World War II and the Holocaust, which her Jewish parents, Lusia and Edward, narrowly survived. Both were forced to escape their homes in Poland when the Nazis invaded in 1939; Edward lost worldly possessions but not loved ones and remained a relentlessly cheerful man later in life: “My father was like sunshine,” Katz writes. Many members of Lusia’s family, however, were murdered by the Nazis. Afterward, she was an anxious woman who was wary of others, taciturnly unwilling to discuss the trauma she experienced as a young girl. The author writes that she inherited this trauma, as well—she calls the Holocaust her “scorched birthright”—and she describes this bequest with melancholic, beautiful prose: “This was the string that pulled at me throughout my life. It coiled and knotted dread around my core, and fear was what I became most familiar with…and guilt lay just beneath the fear.” The burden of her familial past exacted a steep emotional toll, as Katz found it difficult to make friends as a child, and she eventually married a mercurial man who beat her and once called her a “Dirty Jew.” In the aftermath of her divorce, she found herself locked in a bitter custody battle over their two sons—an experience that profoundly challenged her relationship with her children, she says, writing that her ex-husband used them as strategic pawns to hurt her.
Over the course of this memoir, Katz tells a familiar story, but it’s one she tells with remarkable sensitivity and precise prose. At the age of 6, she already knew a lot about the Holocaust and possessed a shockingly clear comprehension of its terrible depths. With great subtlety, she anatomizes how one can suffer the ramifications of an event one never experienced so deeply it would come to dominate the remainder of one’s life. The author’s remembrance is not only a lament, though; in fact, the entire memoir is laced with a life-affirming sense of hopefulness. Katz repeatedly sought the assistance of therapists and, with time, came to reconcile herself with her unusual upbringing: “One of the first things I did in therapy was recognize that there was no need to give in to or heed the frightening thoughts; rather, I could view them as anomalies passing through my mind. Only my acceptance that what I feared most was possible could break the cycle.” The author would eventually marry again, this time to a loving husband, and move to Israel, both of which, she says, satisfied a “yearning for our souls to be made whole.” Her recollection is as moving as it is thoughtful, conveyed in delicate but powerful prose.
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 9798987091616
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Wilbur & Dolce Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 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
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
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