Vintage Ali: literate rabble-rousing mixed with entertaining sniping, smart aperçus, and endless provocations.
Novelist, filmmaker, and firebrand Ali delivers a second volume in his memoir series, following 2018’s Street Fighting Years.
“These memoirs are centered on politics of one sort or another.” That’s an understatement, to be sure. Ali, a stalwart socialist, has never been shy of courting controversy. That’s true of this blend of autobiographical notes and gathered journalism and essays: toward the end of the book, for instance, in an essay on the horrific events of Oct. 7, 2023, he writes, “I don’t agree politically with Hamas.…But I do not and will not criticize them in public for defending Gaza.” Of course, one could dispute that the definition of “defending Gaza” includes the slaughter of peaceful concertgoers, but then one might argue with Ali at many points and still wind up learning a few things. In this, Ali resembles Christopher Hitchens, though even Hitchens might have waited a few days postmortem before lighting into the late Queen Elizabeth II (“The mainstream press of Europe wasting so much paper on the Windsors would do well to remember that the late queen was…a staunch supporter of Brexit, as revealed by Murdoch’s rag the Sun.” Whether Hitchens would take a swing at Ali for revealing that Margaret Thatcher once “affectionately spanked him” is unknowable, but it’s modestly amusing to learn that Ali, now in his 80s, is game to slap someone who gainsays his version of the cause. The doctrinaire stuff can be tiring, as can his dissecting the smallest of disagreements on the part of his fellow Fourth Internationalists. Still, Ali has always kept interesting company—the comedian Peter Cook, the writer Claud Cockburn, the literary scholar Edward Said—and gone after interesting subjects, whether the fiction of Anthony Powell, domestic spying in Britain, or the dictatorial politics of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Pakistan’s Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Vintage Ali: literate rabble-rousing mixed with entertaining sniping, smart aperçus, and endless provocations.Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9781804290903
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
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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