Familiar pandemic terrain revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.
In this memoir, a New Yorker offers reflections on the year of Covid-19, complete with a look at former President Donald Trump and his administration.
From Covid-19’s first appearance on the West Coast in the beginning of 2020 to the insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Pedersen tracks the local, national, and global progression and consequences of the virus that would change everything during a year of stress, craziness, and an ever increasing death toll. It is hard to imagine anyone being able to make readers laugh—or at least chuckle—with such a narrative. But the author, who has written five plays and 18 books, composes paragraphs rich in sarcasm and irony. Although she is an unabashed progressive, even her beloved New Yorkers and their leaders do not always escape her sharp commentary. It is not long before Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio become “Guv Dad” and “Mayor Mom,” trying to get their millions of kids to behave and stay safe: “Mayor Mom wanted to talk things out and employ more ‘social distancing ambassadors’ for a socially distanced group hug. Guv Dad was having none of it.” “Daft Uncle Donald” was always ready to exacerbate the parental discord with some new revelation: “We’d have very few cases if testing stopped.” Acerbic wit notwithstanding, Pedersen’s edgy memoir is an exhaustive, chronologically organized, and annotated compendium of the multitude of crises that roiled the country—the pandemic, the scarcity of Covid-19 tests, the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, historic hurricanes, an explosion of wildfires, and the dangerous miracle cures that were instantly debunked. Remember Trump pondering injecting disinfectants into the human body? The book is both political and personal—a newsreel of 2020 that viscerally and angrily captures the tragedy, confusion, and communal anxiety of the year from an author who lived in one of the country’s first virus epicenters. At one point, Pedersen describes early June as New York City entered Phase 1 of the reopening: “Finally, we all had toilet paper, but the FDA announced a shortage of the antidepressant Zoloft and its generic equivalents.”
Familiar pandemic terrain revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.Pub Date: March 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-673620-3
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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