by William Tsung ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A somber but enlightening and absorbing personal tale of incarceration.
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Tsung’s debut memoir gives a firsthand account of an American-born Chinese man’s time in a Taiwanese prison.
In January 2016, customs officers stopped William Tsung at an airport in Taiwan, a country he had lived in for three years. After accepting a job while back at home in Los Angeles he’d returned to “tie up loose ends.” The medicinal edibles in his bag, legal in the United States, were contraband in Taiwan. He sat in a cell and awaited trial, eager to fight the coerced confession he had signed that implicated him as a smuggler and trafficker. In the meantime, Tsung braved the prison’s horrid conditions—inmates were packed into tiny cells and provided little daily water for cleaning. Every inmate suffered poor living conditions] and subpar healthcare. These men ranged from rapists to those like Tsung, who were serving time for drugs. Tsung bided his time until parole, determined to get back home and not look back. This revealing account blends pithy writing with a conversational tone: “And the snoring! Some of these mofos snored so loud it put me to shame.” It’s a blistering depiction of the Taiwan prison system; one gruesome aspect, the author writes, was the institution’s version of dental care, which mostly consisted of pulling teeth. Tsung himself developed rashes, blisters, and worse. The story doesn’t delve deeply into his mental state, only occasionally referencing his anxiety (the reason for his edibles). The author details the myriad inmates he encountered; some are characterized as despicable, but many others were good people stuck in unfortunate circumstances. The story has its share of welcome lighter moments, including the prison administration ironically screening pirated movies for the inmates. Tsung also praises his loving, supportive family, who often visited him and provided him with funds to purchase, among other things, his hygiene products behind bars.
A somber but enlightening and absorbing personal tale of incarceration.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9798987452707
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
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New York Times Bestseller
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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton
BOOK REVIEW
by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton
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New York Times Bestseller
by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
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New York Times Bestseller
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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