A captivating, candid, and insightful account about a man’s Italian heritage.
In this memoir, a man recollects his first visit to his parents’ hometown in Italy, an emotional journey.
Ruscitti grew up in Frederick, Colorado, a small coal-mining town, regaled by stories about his ancestors in Cansano, nestled in Italy’s Abruzzo region. His parents, Emiliano and Maria, introduced him to the traditions that dominated their own youth—the family made its own wine, hung dried sausage in the cellar, and bought Italian cheeses in bulk. The author’s first language was Italian. But unlike his sisters, he never visited Cansano—never experienced firsthand this town that figured so significantly in the constitution of his own character. He yearned to finally see it for himself and to make sense of his father’s identity and his own. Ruscitti finally visited the town in 2013, a trip he deftly chronicles in this moving memoir: “I had never been to Cansano before and the stories I had heard seemed disconnected from me and my daily life. The difficulties, pain, and suffering of the post-World War II era and subsequent immigrant life were not mine. Yet, after one day, I wanted to touch and get to know this place of origin, and I would soon have an awakening, an understanding of where—and from whom—I came.” The author lucidly combines the personal and the political—he describes his family’s life in Cansano as well as the town’s modern history, both of which were often fraught. Emiliano and Maria grew up in Italy during the 1930s and ’40s and witnessed the ways in which their homeland was ravaged by war, Nazi occupation, and economic deprivation. They both moved to the United States in the mid-’50s and built a successful life that preserved, however imperfectly, the culture of their youth. Ruscitti’s reflection is more than an idiosyncratic remembrance—it’s a thoughtful consideration of the meaning of a person’s sense of self and the nuanced ways in which it is constituted by elements that preceded the individual and elude full comprehension. As a result, the author’s recollection transcends the particulars of his own life and should resonate with readers similarly gripped by the struggle to understand their origins.
A captivating, candid, and insightful account about a man’s Italian heritage.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63576-817-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Radius Book Group
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2022
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
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