A heartbreaking memoir, told with restraint, of oppression and its aftermath.
Chhay and Raudsepp tell the true story of a refugee’s flight from Cambodia to the United States.
Chhay was 9 years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power. Led by the ruthless Pol Pot, the regime would kill two million people during its brief reign, leaving Cambodia in ruins. Like all other city dwellers, Chhay and his family were forced to relocate to the countryside, where they labored as farm workers under the threat of death. They were the lucky ones; former government workers, educated people, and members of ethnic minorities were simply killed. When the regime was overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979, Chhay’s immediate family reunited in their home city, but life did not return to normal. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Chhay recalls, “We knew we were free from that horrible village life, but it was hard to release the shackles that had been implanted in our minds. There was no structure or guidance, just our fight to stay alive, and we did not know what way of life lay ahead for us.” This memoir primarily recounts Chhay’s life following the Khmer period, a time during which he traveled the country as a boy merchant, fled across a mine-strewn border to Thailand, spent nearly six years in a refugee camp, and eventually made his way to a new life in Seattle. The authors capture, in Chhay’s understated voice, both the nightmarish landscapes of war and the new, unknown world of America: “I was amazed as I-5 went right alongside several tall buildings of glass and steel that reached way up into the sky. I had never seen such huge buildings before. All the cars everywhere amazed me as well. There were so many new, modern, and beautiful cars everywhere.” The memoir serves as an affecting reminder that even after conflicts end and dictatorships fall, the suffering continues. Chhay’s chronicle is a story about finding a way to live in the aftermath of catastrophe when the old ways of living are no longer possible.
A heartbreaking memoir, told with restraint, of oppression and its aftermath.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2024
ISBN: 9798350934571
Page Count: 212
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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