A book of pluck, spirit, and great emotion with an appealing perspective on the value of each human life.
A poet and creative nonfiction professor grapples with motherhood and the meaning of life in this memoir of raising her developmentally challenged daughter, Fiona.
As Lanier notes at the beginning, she had followed all the best-practices advice throughout her pregnancy—organic fruits and vegetables, no GMO, maintaining a seated position leaning forward with “my elbows propped on my spread knees like I was forever on the verge of imparting a proverb”—to make certain that hers would be a “SuperBaby.” But Fiona was born with the extremely rare Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, which has profound developmental affects relative to mental growth, speech, coordination, and other areas. It has a high youthful mortality rate, and “there is no specific treatment.” The author struggled mightily to cope with the severity of the diagnosis: “I was free-falling….My sadness was no longer the selfish reaction that my baby wasn’t, would not be perfect, but that we could lose her….My cry was an emptying….My cry was a collapse.” Lanier writes with powerful humanity as she charts her course, and one of the first lessons she learned was that when anyone chooses to have a child, they “sign up for the fragility of life.” The author is especially sharp on her journey to remake herself, to pivot away from “the desperate, clinging, distraught version who wanted what her child was not.” Along the way, she forcefully condemns the concept of a hierarchy of lives worth living. Her abiding love for Fiona is clear throughout, and it’s heartening to watch her learn to reject the idea that disability is deficit. “We can only open our arms, say welcome,” she writes, and she is clear that this means being vulnerable, “often fallible, but always open, and raw, and real. And present to the whole messy world.”
A book of pluck, spirit, and great emotion with an appealing perspective on the value of each human life.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-55963-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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