A valuable memoir enriched by years of personal and societal insight into the fraught subject of gender identity.
A trans poet and essayist who transitioned later in life reflects on decades of discovering, reckoning with, and finally embracing her gender identity.
Poet and author Goetsch opens with a section about her mid-20s, when she was living as a man whose public persona concealed severe depression, aching loneliness, and the cross-dressing as a woman that exhilarated and confused her as well as isolated her from the human connection she craved. While studying at Wesleyan in the 1980s, the author tried desperately to understand herself and her “unmoored” perception of gender, struggling with feelings for which there were few avenues of expression at the time. At the beginning of the book, she includes a note about the language she uses throughout, which reflects the often offensive attitudes of the time period she describes. The narrative follows a nonlinear structure, with chapters indicated by years as well as titles. In the second part of the book, Goetsch returns to her childhood and adolescence, marked by family dysfunction, bullying, abuse, and loneliness, and the third section delves into the last significant relationships the author had with women while living as a man, her blossoming affinities for poetry and Buddhism, and the process of coming out as trans at age 50. Goetsch recalls periods and important locations in her life with rich, compelling detail, but sometimes her revelries are sprawling and unevenly paced. The prose is often lovely and emotionally affecting, as when she describes writing a painful goodbye to an ex-girlfriend’s sons after the breakup, and her insights into what it means to be trans, both on a personal and societal level, are valuable. Readers may find her blunt quips about transphobia even within the queer community sadly relevant, highlighting how much work still needs to be done: “The institutional transphobia was appalling: L, G, and B didn’t give a fuck about T.”
A valuable memoir enriched by years of personal and societal insight into the fraught subject of gender identity.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-11509-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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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