Very TV-literate readers who also love memoir—this book is for you.
The life and times of a casting director in pre- and post-pandemic Hollywood.
Reading this book will involve recognizing a great many names from the entertainment industry, but the key one is this: Max Greenfield. The debut author’s husband, Greenfield was the star of New Girl, a popular 2010s sitcom that became an obsession for many during lockdown. As he writes in his introduction to his wife’s book, “Tess has found humor, irony, and emotional resonance in the messiness of her life, while simultaneously being able to expose her vulnerability, because that’s who she is.” He’s got that right: The essays touch on her rise to success as an obsessively box-checking beginning casting director (this section is very detailed and would be useful for those with similar aspirations); the blip in the early days of her relationship with Greenfield when he had to confront addiction; the much later period, after their marriage, when she literally pooped her pants at a children’s sporting event; the emotional complexities she faced in her relationship with her aging parents. Another essay describes her indignation when, after the pandemic, the workers at a resort instantly recognized and fawned over Greenfield but assumed she, perhaps because she is of Mexican descent, must be the nanny. This essay has a “do you know who I am” vibe that is almost endearing—considering that she was a casting director. (It’s not fully clear what happened to her work life during the pandemic, but it wasn’t good.) Perhaps the biggest drawback of the book is the shtick of introducing every character by naming an actor they resemble, and then calling them that name. It works well enough with Reese Witherspoon or John Mulaney, but the suggestion that you “think” Vanessa Bayer, Jared Hess, Topher Grace, Meagan Good, Merritt Wever, etc.—in order to imagine the people she’s writing about—ends up being a limiting shortcut.
Very TV-literate readers who also love memoir—this book is for you.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781668060858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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