A distinctive voice delivers an entertaining and insightful look at family and mental health.
In Gormley’s memoir, a successful executive returns home to care for her mother and, eventually, herself.
After growing up in Ohio, the author’s career in marketing took her to the heights of the corporate ladder; she had fabulous apartments in glamorous cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, but she also found herself on the edge of a nervous breakdown: “I thought I might get fired. I needed to quit.…My job was not my life, but I couldn’t figure out what my life was without my job.” That sentiment would change in an instant when she received the call informing her that her mother had cancer—only one year after losing her father. Without hesitation, Gormley left her high-powered executive job at Adobe to take on a “grown-up gap year” in which she would care for her mother back in Ohio. As Gormley recounts the year spent taking her mother to doctor’s appointments, each with more depressing diagnoses than the last, she also delves into her own psychological issues. Since she was a child, Gormley strived for “gold stars,” achievements that ranged from straight-A report cards to promotions to obsessive calorie-counting. With the time off of work and the help of some long-distance therapy sessions, Gormley was finally able to confront some of the origins of these issues and even start to prepare for a new life with the handsome cousin of a neighbor, Camillus Musselman. (“Who falls in love when their mother is dying?” she asks herself, but Camillus’ charm was too great to resist.) Gormley soon found herself on a new path that would lead to owning an art gallery in Ohio and continuing the work of “untangling” herself from the memories of her beloved, late mother—which, as she says, is “something I will keep doing for the rest of my life.”
Gormley’s style makes inventive fun of the concise, corporate messaging from her former career; pivotal scenes and emotional revelations become bullet-pointed lists or simple, choppy declarations. It’s a rhythm that feels specific and refreshing, bringing a punchy and enjoyable tone to her heavy subject matter. She also has an eye for peculiar and unexpected details, crafting imagery that stays with readers long after her book is over, including playful descriptions of her boyfriend's wrists (a body part she never expected to be attracted to); the haunting death rattle sound that signaled the ends of both of her parents’ lives; or the sharp contours of her hip bones jutting out of the bath, a marker of her “progress” in staying thin (just one of the many effective ways she conveys an array of powerful emotions around her history with anorexia). No matter the weight of the subject, Gormley maintains a steady sense of humor—she and her mother have hilarious repartee even in the darkest moments, and there are plenty of corporate gags peppered throughout (like her recipe for “Martha-Stewart-Fired-Me Cookies”). This keen eye and quick wit tie the memoir’s different themes, from self-help introspection to family tragedy, together into one cohesive whole.
A distinctive voice delivers an entertaining and insightful look at family and mental health.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798990642508
Page Count: -
Publisher: Salt Creek Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 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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