A candid memoir that will resonate with anyone navigating the relationship between mother and daughter.
Crylen’s debut memoir explores the complexities of filial relationships.
In 1958, the author was almost 5 years old and living on Chicago’s South Side with her large Catholic family. The sixth of eight children, Crylen often found herself imagining an ever-present and positive mother within the radio, a sharp contrast to her own depressed mother, Florence, who struggled with the size and circumstances of their family (“Every night in bed, I strategized about how I would at last coax Radio Mom out from where she and the others huddled together. My desire for her had grown increasingly intense. I was sure that once Radio Mom saw me, everything else would be easy-peasy—it was getting her attention that was the problem”). What follows is an intimate portrayal of a family in which many of the children, the author most of all, tiptoed around their mother to avoid making her life any harder. The memoir follows Crylen’s life story through her teen years and on to college, changing pace as she falls in love with John, an older professor whom she eventually married. The author experienced a time of transition as she retrained to become a counselor, gave birth to her own daughter, Grace, and eventually divorced John. From this point, the narrative, through deft storytelling, examines the changing dynamic of mother-daughter relationships, exploring the bonds between Grace and Crylen, Crylen and her own mother, and Grace and her grandmother. It is here that the author’s mother softens, doting upon her granddaughter as Crylen developed a new understanding and peace within their relationship. It is a well-written piece, laced with honesty and blessedly lacking in hyperbole. Though filled with an incredible amount of detail that can sometimes feel unevenly distributed, the book will nevertheless endear the author to the reader as she pieces together her past and expresses hopefulness for the future.
A candid memoir that will resonate with anyone navigating the relationship between mother and daughter.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781647425753
Page Count: 296
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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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