An honest, detailed, and well-structured account of the personal and political.
This memoir details a journalistic coming-of-age in Myanmar.
The premise of Mudditt’s debut is simple, but its content proves highly complex as it details the author’s time living in Myanmar for four years from 2012 to 2016. The Melbourne native moved to the city of Yangon with her Bangladeshi husband, translator Sherpa Hussainy, to build a life and career, and she meticulously documents her experience as a journalist in one of the world’s most repressive military regimes, home to a stunning diversity of ethnic and religious groups, a sublime natural landscape, and a complex pre- and post-colonial history. The first part of the book deals with practical difficulties as well as the struggles she faced in understanding the country’s sociopolitical and journalistic landscape. A late chapter that gives the book its title marks a turning point as she experiences a budding hope regarding the country’s nascent democratic processes. The book’s last third highlights the 2015 election, which took place amid a rise in xenophobia and religious fundamentalism. Black-and-white photos shot by Mudditt enhance it throughout, and a detailed epilogue connects her narrative to the present-day human rights and political situation in the country. Thematically and stylistically, Mudditt employs a careful journalistic voice as she exposes the privileges and pitfalls of her Western European viewpoint, and her tone balances genuine emotional reactions with journalistic observations; the result is a balanced but passionate report. She excels at bringing in diverse local perspectives to constantly challenge her own, and the reader’s, expectations of Myanmar. This is particularly visible in Mudditt’s exploration of the politics of renaming the country, which was formerly known as Burma, and the citizenry’s treatment of gender. Her observation of employees in the state-controlled publication The New Light is nuanced and crucially combats more reductive depictions of people working in regimes with limited press freedom. The book’s epilogue is almost poignant in its matter-of-fact manner, as the book leaves the reader the same way Mudditt left Myanmar—on a sad note of incompletion yet enriched in knowledge and spirit.
An honest, detailed, and well-structured account of the personal and political.Pub Date: March 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-648-91422-8
Page Count: 316
Publisher: THORPE-Bowker
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 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 Yorker staff 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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