A remembrance that’s packed with adventure but feels unnecessarily drawn out.
A pair of newlyweds embark on an epic trip that takes them from California to India in this travel memoir by Lang-Slattery, author of Immigrant Soldier (2015).
In the late summer of 1971, the author and her new husband, mechanical engineer Tom Slattery, set off on what they called “the honeymoon trip.” Leaving Laguna Beach, California, in their Volkswagen Microbus, which they nicknamed “Turtle,” they initially headed south to Mexico in hopes of exploring Central and South America. After struggling to find a way to bypass the notorious Darién Gap, a roadless expanse of jungle between Panama and Columbia, the two decided to board the SS Donizetti and sail from Panama to Barcelona, Spain. From here, their trip took them through Western Europe and North Africa before they headed into Turkey, Iran, India, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. The journey, which comprised almost two years of travel, was a test of the young couple’s evolving relationship as they faced all manner of obstacles—including their own van, which was in regular need of repair. The author also includes photographs, maps, and sketches to illustrate the voyage. Lang-Slattery offers some evocative passages that capture her fascination with the ever changing landscape: “Clusters of dome-roofed, dry mud villages squatted among the rocks. A camel caravan, the beasts joined tail to nose, plodded forward, one after the other, at the side of the highway.” She also includes some illuminating asides, such as when she and her spouse were forced to find a library so that they could look up the word Zouave in an encyclopedia—a window into the world prior to the internet. This attention to detail can prove tedious at times, however; the author gets bogged down in recounting minutiae, as in a description of building a sofa for the Microbus: “The seat back hung from turn screws and was easy to take down at night so we could open up the bed. The padded seat, though heavy, lifted to provide access to the new storage.” This overly meticulous approach results in a narrative that many readers will consider long-winded.
A remembrance that’s packed with adventure but feels unnecessarily drawn out.Pub Date: July 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7342796-3-4
Page Count: 348
Publisher: PacificBookworks
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2020
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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