A lengthy, slightly impenetrable account of a David-and-Goliath legal case.
Boggs fights to save his home from foreclosure in this debut legal memoir.
It takes a lot of gumption to sue a financial institution as big as Wells Fargo Bank. It takes even more to serve as your own attorney in the suit. As a professional real estate investor and developer, the author owned or partially owned 20 properties around the country when the 2008 housing crisis began. His business suffered over the next two years, but he never fell behind on his mortgage payments. Even so, on the last day of 2010, he received a letter in the mail alerting him that Wells Fargo was foreclosing on his Oakland, California, house—his personal residence, which he shared with his wife, Michelle. Boggs decided to fight the bank in court, though he soon realized that, given his lack of income, he would have to serve as his own lawyer. Little did he realize how much time and effort would be required for the case or how much he would learn, sometimes to his chagrin, about the American legal system: “I realized during the process that this wasn’t only about trying to save my home from being foreclosed on illegally,” he writes. “It was also about trying to put a stop to how this could happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The author chronicles his case in detail—court documents make up a good portion of the book’s 450-page bulk—and provides extensive background on the history of banking and property law. Unfortunately, his prose tends to be a bit overwritten, as when he describes his reaction to the foreclosure notice: “The air was stiff and confining. I felt its syrupy heaviness as I inhaled. The act of breathing had become substantially more difficult. I felt as if the living room’s golden, sponge painted walls were closing in on me. For me, it is a day that will live in infamy.” Though the account is fascinating for what it reveals about the ability of lenders to take people’s homes, the reading experience is very dry.
A lengthy, slightly impenetrable account of a David-and-Goliath legal case.Pub Date: June 10, 2021
ISBN: 9781736471548
Page Count: 460
Publisher: Olive Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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