A remarkable story of hope and determination passionately recounted.
A woman recalls becoming a stem cell donor for her ailing sister in this debut memoir.
West’s book opens in August 2016 in the Santa Cruz Mountains with a description of the author sparring in a muay thai boxing match. In her early 60s, West recounts how her training “reshaped” her body, offering her a level of fitness that would prove vital for what lay ahead. The morning after the bout, she received an email from her older sister, Linda, revealing that she had developed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Linda had been given the prognosis of “a painful though fairly rapid death” unless a highly suitable stem cell donor could be found. The sisters had not spoken in months, having fallen out over details of their mother’s health care. Despite their differences and the author’s being two decades over the age limit for donors, West agreed to be tested and was found to be a perfect match. The memoir charts Linda’s journey to recovery and examines the author’s past life, from coming out as a lesbian in the 1970s to confronting alcoholism. West channels the immediacy and energy she gleans from muay thai into her writing. The result is a vibrant, punchy narrative, exemplified by her discussion of her alcoholism: “Drinking came easily, like bullets sliding into a chamber. My drinking was naturally destructive. I blacked out, hid bottles, stole from anyone, lied to friends, cheated on lovers.” Always candidly confessional, the author tempers her prose style by including contrastingly meditative passages: “I find that silence calms me. That lets me sense myself differently….Rather than feeling isolated, as I often do in my thoughts, in silence I connect to a web of friendly energy.” The narrative is deeply and admirably introspective. One minor criticism is that insufficient effort was made to consider the journey from Linda’s perspective, which would have given the account a valuable extra dimension. As the book now stands, readers never get to know her fully. But this does not detract significantly from a well-written memoir that deftly describes cancer as an opponent that can be faced and beaten.
A remarkable story of hope and determination passionately recounted.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63152-753-1
Page Count: 280
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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
SEEN & HEARD
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