An illuminating and unsettling portrayal of pedophilic child abuse and its far-reaching, traumatic effects.
A memoir recounts a doting wife discovering a shocking truth about her husband.
Though Ruah, a veteran child adoption advocate, lived under the assumption that people were “capable of evil” and “therefore deserving of at least a little suspicion and caution,” she found herself unprepared for a startling revelation about her third husband, Jack. The author begins her book with her early impressions as a child in a small, unnamed town where she fell prey to her father’s sexual abuse. While intelligent, she was often withdrawn, cherishing books and the outdoors. She admits to falling in love easily, but after two failed marriages in her early 20s and the biological son and two stepsons those unions produced, Ruah gave up on relationships. She adopted a series of foster children and became a celibate ordained minister. Eventually, she met Jack, a dashing, recycled-housewares salesman who was divorced and a foster parent. Her insistence on rushing into marriage backfired when one of her sons reported that Jack had been regularly fondling one of his brothers. When confronted, Jack confessed that he was gay and that his impulses to touch children had become uncontrollable. Despite her marriage crumbling, Ruah seized the situation by enacting a safety plan for the children, sheltering them from further abuse. The aftermath of Jack’s disclosure (and the severity of his chronic abuse) constitutes the memoir’s second half and incorporates the emotional and legal logistics of how convicted sex offenders are brought to justice, the leniency some are afforded, and, most movingly, the author’s guilt, shame, suicidal ideation, and struggle to solely parent her children. Ruah confesses that her reconnection to reality after a lifetime of disastrous unions will remain a work in progress. Her intimately written, first-person perspective is delivered through passionate prose, sparing no detail or emotion. This quality lends the work a remarkable legitimacy and transforms the author’s experiences into an intensely disturbing read. With divinity buoying her throughout this ordeal, Ruah leaned heavily on her belief systems and mystical rationalizations to process, find closure, and move forward with grace. An accessible resource and study guide with a glossary, statistics, and discussion questions at the volume’s conclusion offers educational moments for readers interested in the subject.
An illuminating and unsettling portrayal of pedophilic child abuse and its far-reaching, traumatic effects.Pub Date: March 20, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-935271-13-0
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Ideas into Books WESTVIEW
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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