A poignant multimedia journey that beautifully combines art, music, and the written word to detail a long-overlooked life.
A mixed-media book—including original song lyrics and artwork—telling the story of Zintkála Nuni’s tragic life.
This companion book to the award-winning short film Lost Bird (Zintkála Nuni) begins with the lyrics—only one or two lines per page—to Colerick’s song “Little Bird—(Lost Bird of Wounded Knee)” (the sheet music for which is included at the book’s conclusion). It tells the story of Zintka, who, as an infant, survived a three-day blizzard in the arms of her dying mother in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre. The dominant feature of each page is the artwork, done in a style Feldmann calls “animontage,” which is based on the Plains Indians’ ledger art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Feldmann “created digital ledger art using backgrounds of broken treaties, telegraphs, and handwritten military documents. On top of them [he] placed drawings by Lakota artists of the era.” The lyrics convey the loss and desolation Zintka faced after being adopted by an army general who forged his wife’s signature in court before leaving the two of them in poverty years later: “Lost in a Ghost Dance / Spirits have come looking for you / They won’t rest until you’re home / Little bird / Troubled child / You can feel your mother’s love / And frozen fingers.” Feldmann’s prose retelling of Zintka’s life and death, which makes up the book’s second half, is handled with both compassion and matter-of-factness. Haunting images, like a close-up of a man’s gloved hand holding (strangling?) a shadowy bird surrounded by buffalo skulls, add an extra emotional layer to Zintka’s remarkable story. A timeline spanning from her birth in 1890 to 1991, when her body was exhumed and reburied at Wounded Knee, helps put the events in context. All of these elements ultimately combine to provide an unforgettable glimpse into a particularly dark time in America’s history.
A poignant multimedia journey that beautifully combines art, music, and the written word to detail a long-overlooked life.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9798218439644
Page Count: 48
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
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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