An important, wholly believable account of how long-buried but profoundly formative experiences finally emerge.
Recovered memories of childhood abuse tear through the fabric of a “perfect” life.
Griffin’s debut memoir begins with a lyrical account of an idyllic childhood in Amarillo, Texas. Her family owned a chain of convenience stores called Toot’n Totum, whose sparkling aisles of colorful products seemed to the young Amy a kind of paradise. “The best things in life weren’t free. They were shrink-wrapped.” From an early age, she loved running, but also felt she couldn’t stop running—as she grew up, she felt both an intense pressure to be perfect and a disturbing sense of disassociation from her own accomplishments. “From the outside, at least, after I married John and we began building our life together, things did seem ‘perfect.’ I was athletic, tall, and blond. John was successful and respected in his career. I got pregnant easily and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, my son Jack.” Three more children followed. She traces the beginning of her understanding that something was wrong to the day her 10-year-old daughter complained that she felt disconnected from her: “You’re here, but you’re not here.” After her husband had a great experience with a mental health practitioner who worked with MDMA, she decided to try it. Very quickly, the walls came tumbling down. Terrible experiences she had in middle school began to play in her head “like I was the only person in a theater, watching a movie projected up onto the screen from the front row.” The remainder of the book describes her attempts to get some kind of closure, but it turns out that the Texas statute of limitations has expired and people she hopes will be able to confirm some part of her story aren’t able to help. In the end, the only relief she can get is from writing it all down—first in detailed journals she kept at the time and now in this book. And though it would sound strange to describe the account of something this dark as “good,” Griffin has indeed validated her experience with a well-written and moving book.
An important, wholly believable account of how long-buried but profoundly formative experiences finally emerge.Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593731208
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dial Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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