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THE GUILD OF THE INFANT SAVIOUR

AN ADOPTED CHILD'S MEMORY BOOK

Flawed but haunting, a potent reminder that adoption is founded on loss.

An exploration of adoption through personal essays, art, and photos.

The title refers to the home for unwed mothers, one of thousands across the country, where, in 1966, Galbraith’s birth mother, Ursula, was sequestered for tedious months waiting to give birth and then surrender her child for adoption. Though girls were expected to put the experience behind them, few ever could. In emotional, sometimes blistering essays, Galbraith portrays her loving adoptive parents, sexuality, and role as wife and mother. The author references her thorny relationship with Ursula throughout, from their first reunion in 1996 to subsequent fraught encounters. Galbraith, who wanted more than Ursula was ready or able to give, shares deeply personal details about both, retelling Ursula’s life story as autobiography. This section, she notes, “is stitched together from letters and journals given to me by my birth mother. It involves both our voices which blend and embellish each other.” Visual elements include photos of molded-plastic dolls Galbraith placed in dollhouse dioramas to mimic her own childhood photos. The affectless dolls and lively baby Megan—in similar dress and pose—are unsettlingly juxtaposed against Galbraith’s words. Some intimate disclosures edge into narcissism, and the author’s judgments of friends and family can be harsh. However, the essays that situate her experience as an adoptee and mother within a historical framework are resonant and consistently compelling. She critiques Cornell University’s Domestic Economics program, inaugurated in 1919, which “borrowed” infants from orphanages to serve as practice babies for female students. (Paired with program baby photos, Galbraith’s doll scenes are eerily apt.) While Gabrielle Glaser’s American Baby (2021) offers broader insights into and historical context for the closed-adoption era, Galbraith’s passionate narrative effectively shows the struggle of an adopted child to comprehend an often long-hidden history. Ursula wouldn’t allow her photos to appear in the book, one part of a pattern of denial that the author highlights at various points in the book.

Flawed but haunting, a potent reminder that adoption is founded on loss.

Pub Date: May 22, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-8142-5791-3

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Mad Creek/Ohio State Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021

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TANQUERAY

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

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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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LOVE, PAMELA

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

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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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