A compelling look at an eventful life.
A biography of a little-known figure in the 20th-century gay rights movement.
In this debut biography, Steele tells the story of his late friendJim Foshee, a gay historian and activist. Foshee was born in 1939 and had a difficult childhood in which he was frequently at odds with his mother, father, and stepfathers and experienced abuse. He ran away from home repeatedly as an adolescent; the book’s title is a reference to when he escaped from Idaho to Los Angeles in 1954 and an LA sheriff later threatened to have him barred from the state. He was also remanded to the Idaho State Mental Hospital more than once—a place to which he felt more attached than his family home. In adulthood, he continued his peripatetic lifestyle, making a living through low-wage jobs and occasional sex work; finally, a minor theft landed him in a Texas state prison for three years. Foshee eventually ended up in Colorado in 1969, where he fell in love and settled down with John Koop Bergmann, who worked for a laundry machine installation company. The two were fixtures in Denver’s gay community, and Foshee got jobs in print and radio journalism and discovered a passion for researching gay history. When Bergmann died of cancer in 1980, shortly after the two moved to California, Foshee was again on his own, and because their relationship had no recognized legal status at the time, he was relegated to the status of “friend” at his partner’s funeral. Foshee returned to Denver but soon began moving from place to place, mainly between California and Arizona. He continued his involvement in gay activism and historical research through his last decades before his death in 2006.
Foshee’s own words are the core of this book, with quotes from interviews making up much of the text. They’re linked by former journalist Steele’s own narration of the events of Foshee’s life, which adds a sense of structure and effectively places the events in historical and cultural context. However, Foshee proves to be a thoughtful observer of his own journey, giving the reader an intimate look at the choices he made and the paths he followed and the reasons why he did so. Steele’s excellent organization of his biography adds further insight, bringing the midcentury life of an American gay man into vivid relief and painting a detailed picture of an era when homosexuality was illegal in many parts of the country. The book’s geography is also crucial: “I experienced the actual beginnings of the modern gay rights movement then and there in Los Angeles,” Foshee explains at one point, “so I knew firsthand that the gay movement didn’t begin two decades later at the Stonewall Inn.” Photos and documents from a number of sources, including gay-history archives that Foshee helped to build, add illuminating detail along the way. Overall, Steele does an excellent job of presenting the story of an activist and making it clear why his story matters.
A compelling look at an eventful life.Pub Date: June 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73401-081-7
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Wentworth-Schwartz Publishing Company
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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