A poignant, forthright, and encouraging shout-out to fellow travelers in grief.
Hassel recollects her unique journey to honor her husband’s life after his untimely death in this memoir.
In his mid-40s, the author’s husband, Dr. Mark Hassel, a successful and beloved dermatologist in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was diagnosed with incurable stomach cancer. He fought the disease for 19 months before dying at age 47. Hassel was left to finish raising the couple’s three children on her own. She was rudderless, engulfed in paralyzing grief. Mark was the adventurous one in their relationship: “My husband was someone who exemplified the statement, ‘Live fully!’ He would embrace every opportunity to explore, travel, taste exotic foods, or try unfamiliar things.” Searching for a way to move forward and to honor Mark’s exuberance for life, a “way to demonstrate…not merely that I missed Mark but that knowing him inspired me to become a better person,” Hassel thought of the Yamaha Vino scooter the couple had purchased shortly after receiving Mark’s diagnosis. She enrolled in a motorcycle safety course, mastered the course with a perfect score, and received her license. That day, she determined her mission would be to find one challenge each year that would push her out of her comfort zone. Challenge by challenge, the author vividly and emotionally (and with a bit of humor) details her wide assortment of experiences, including a body-toning contest in Las Vegas, a 100-mile bicycle event around Lake Tahoe, and volunteering to aid the homeless. Then, she made a major life-changing pivot: Although she was already a licensed attorney, Hassel enrolled in nursing school, making use of the skills she’d developed as Mark’s primary caregiver. As the author herself admits, her choices, enabled by the privilege of economic security, will not likely be feasible for most readers. Still, she so viscerally portrays the emotional, physical, and psychological struggles she confronted in each endeavor that her memoir powerfully conveys the essence of her message: “Finding meaningful ways to remember a loved one and honor that person’s legacy could help anyone move forward and find a new purpose.”
A poignant, forthright, and encouraging shout-out to fellow travelers in grief.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9798888242674
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
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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