An appealing account of one family’s journeys and interpersonal dynamics.
A woman born in South Korea immigrates to the United States in Angell’s memoir.
The author opens the book questioning the meaning of her own life while beginning to craft her own story. The work chronicles her time as a child in South Korea, where she was born into a family with a harsh father whose income was significantly affected by the hardships of World War II and the Korean War. As a savvy college student, her older sister, Soya, helped her secure a future in New York City. When her father died and her mother sold her Korean home, her mother and her young siblings moved to Queens. After working for Lord & Taylor and Pan American, Angell met Adam, a native New Yorker, who became her husband. They resided in New York and raised their family, including the two children the couple have together, Carla and Ryan. When the children were young, the family moved to Dubai, where Adam established a law firm and the author discovered a passion for designing and building furniture. Times changed, and the family returned to New York. Angell goes beyond a typical immigration narrative and writes about what happens when immigrant families change while residing in new places (“The only option was to adapt and rediscover the meaning of self-existence with adjusted expectations”). She recounts family challenges and dramas that are somewhat universal, further building a connection with the reader. The book also offers some stunning descriptions of Korean culture, New York City, and the fondly remembered times the family spent in Dubai. While this personal narrative is intriguing, the sections set in the present detract a bit from the story—the remembrance sections work better to move the narrative forward. The book also has a great deal of summary and “telling” rather than “showing” what happened; the text lacks scenes that bring poignant events and their significant emotional impacts to life. Still, this is an enjoyable memoir that tells a story that’s both unique and universal.
An appealing account of one family’s journeys and interpersonal dynamics.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9798350963533
Page Count: 268
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 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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