A vitally important book for fellow survivors—and anyone seeking justice for victims.
A horrifyingly unforgettable memoir of sexual abuse and its lifelong consequences.
Mills first experienced trauma after the early death of his father, who suffered from both nerve disease and mental illness. In late boyhood, still grieving, he fell into a trap carefully laid by a summer-camp manager. The author’s descriptions of his abuse are uncomfortably graphic, and readers will join him in his reaction to the first of them: “I closed my eyes and prayed. I’m not here. I’m not here.” The perpetrator insinuated himself into Mills’ family life, convincing his mother and stepfather to allow Mills to go on vacation with him to the Bahamas, where yet more molestation occurred. Finding relief along various avenues as he grew into adulthood—from attending yeshiva to taking a pharmacopeia of illegal drugs and committing small-scale crimes—Mills drifted: “My Jewish soul—Shlomo’s soul—had found its way home,” he writes. “But Stephen kept checking the doors for escape routes.” Eventually, with the support of Margaret Mead, Mills undertook graduate studies even as his molester rose in the world of intergroup summer camps. Mills became a counselor, and witnessing the same molester lure young men into lairs at one such camp spurred him to bring the criminal to justice. That effort, which occupies the latter third of this visceral, gripping book, is both an endless game of cat and mouse and the subject of a narrative full of disappointments. The FBI, promising at first, failed to deliver, since Mann Act provisions had expired, even though Mills provided testimonials from numerous of his contemporaries that they, too, had been abused. The late lawyer and thriller author Andrew Vachss also tried to help, to no avail. It was only through civil actions after the perpetrator died, targeting employers that knew of and tolerated the abuse, that some possible form of retribution emerged, a matter unresolved at the end of this powerful, closely observed account.
A vitally important book for fellow survivors—and anyone seeking justice for victims.Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-82321-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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