A strikingly honest memoir about a father-daughter relationship, but one that could have valuably had a wider focus.
Collins explores the life and death of her complicated father—an “adventurous, fun-loving, and generous” man who also had a “loud, stubborn, and angry” side.
The author’s father, Boris, was one of 10 children descended from Finnish and Russian immigrants, and suffered abuse during childhood. As an adult, Boris became a law enforcement officer, and he was a high-energy but emotionally disconnected parent, notes Collins. Several deaths in the family and the revelation of a dark secret during the author’s teenage years left her questioning her family history and Christian faith. When she was in college in the 2000s, her father was diagnosed with colon cancer and her parents divorced. To cope, Collins writes that she immersed herself in her law-school studies and a full-time police department job. As her father’s health deteriorated, his behavior grew erratic, she says, noting he ran 56 miles in one day to celebrate his 56th birthday, and attempted to run for governor of California. Collins married and became an attorney, but when she began having panic attacks in 2014, she began therapy and sought out a support group. As she learned more about herself, she says, she felt more compassion for her father. His cancer was eventually deemed inoperable, so he sold his home and moved in with Collins; he died in 2023, after several difficult weeks. The author took time off work and finally let herself feel and express her feelings: “Allowing myself to let my walls down and be vulnerable in front of those I love is the true gift of generational wealth Dad left me,” she concludes.
In this bittersweet work, Collins boldly confronts ambivalent feelings about a parent. Readers who were raised by, or experienced the loss of, challenging parents are sure to find her story relatable. The book presents thought-provoking questions, such as “What do you do when you learn that the person who raised you to follow a certain standard of ethics…doesn’t follow his own rules?” The author shows plenty of self-awareness, reflecting on how “no matter how deeply hurt I was by Dad’s behaviors—at my very core, I still always loved him. And because I loved him, I wanted to protect him.” However, the tight focus on the relationship between the author and her father unfortunately crowds out other family members’ stories, and how they influenced her life. One compelling section, though, describes the challenge of caring for a parent while parenting one’s own kids, which will resonate with others in similar situations. Collins is revealing about the emotions she felt: “The less energy I had for my children, the more they tried to suck it out of me…I pulled back, exasperated by their parasitic nature.” She also explores how those caring for the dying often want the experience to end, only to grapple with grief when it does. The book’s short chapters keep the narrative moving, and photographs of the author and her father effectively personalize it.
A strikingly honest memoir about a father-daughter relationship, but one that could have valuably had a wider focus.Pub Date: March 8, 2025
ISBN: 9798988975786
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Breakthrough Books LLC
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2025
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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