A captivating homage to the city and the restless souls inhabiting it.
A woman’s besotted affair with New York is celebrated in these exuberant writings.
Australian-born novelist Emanuel’s rambling memoirs of her sojourns in New York and her short fiction set in the city blend together into a love letter that views Gotham’s iconic scenes and experiences from off-kilter angles. Chief among these are Emanuel’s wanderings through the city’s art scene, viewing everything from classical sculpture to Rembrandt self-portraits to avant-garde gallery offerings. (“I can only think of kneepads,” she remarks of a performance piece in which the artist crawled across a concrete floor strewn with glass shards.) She also got distracted by a man’s jiggling leg during a performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera; went on many a shopping expedition (at one boutique, she absentmindedly shoplifted a purse); ruminated on John Lennon at the Dakota and Dylan Thomas at the White Horse Tavern; encountered celebrated street performer The Naked Cowboy, clad only in undies, on 42nd Street during a blizzard; battled a balky MetroCard reader; savored the fish section at Zabar’s food nirvana; and listened patiently to the yackety anecdotes of natives. (“As I gets out of the car, I closes the door and my coat catches in the door. Ira the stupid klutz starts driving away.”) Later sections of the book feature flash fiction, also about women wandering New York, drawn by tenuous romantic leads but mainly just taking in the city’s aura. A final story removes itself to Sydney to plumb the fraught relationship of an insecure art student and her melodramatic friend—before returning to New York for melancholy reflection on the friendship’s tragic demise.
Emanuel’s feuilletons unfold as a swirling kaleidoscope of impressions that add up to an urban odyssey reminiscent of Stephen Dedalus’ passage through Dublin in Ulysses. Her gorgeous, evocative prose renders even a subway annoyance as a standout image: “In the seat opposite us, sits the exact opposite of tantalizing, a stoner ogre slumps half asleep, legs sprawled, a claw hammer poking out of his pocket.” As the city emerges through her layered atmospherics, Emanuel conveys the dynamic of loneliness and longing playing out in them. (“In the shadow of a fifth-floor walk-up, a chain-smoking figure presses his face to the window pane. The tip of his cigarette smouldering red. We face each other at twilight. Two lone voyeurs. Me eating a Twinkie and him slouching on the razor’s edge. Oh Jesus.”) At times the writing breaks free into a surreal lyricism that’s right on the edge of incoherence—“A film, a robot, the city of rationality remembers me giddy as a goddess and maggot man dancing on stained carpet, punching the jukebox as he upends packets of chips into my open mouth of that Sunday, do I whisper, Come home with me”—yet somehow makes sense. Anyone who has lived in—or dreamed of—New York will find here an engrossing portrait of its mundane magic.
A captivating homage to the city and the restless souls inhabiting it.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-955196-79-6
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 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
SEEN & HEARD
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