An exploration of gender that effectively balances pathos and humor.
Charting the boundaries between manhood and womanhood.
In 15 engaging chapters that blend memoir and cultural critique, Boylan chronicles numerous formative experiences, ranging from her childhood and adolescence on the Philadelphia Main Line, to college at Wesleyan University and marriage as a cis man to a cis woman, to parenthood and success as a writer and college professor. The book’s emotional linchpin is “Mothers,” in which Boylan, a noted authority on gender, depicts her older child’s decision post-college to transition from cis male to trans woman. Boylan initially experienced a welter of conflicting emotions upon learning of her child’s intentions: “It was all something I’d never have wished on anybody, especially someone whom I loved” and “Is it possible, I wondered, that I made this look like fun?” The irony and painful surprise are worthy of an O. Henry story. Other chapters are informed by observations of the shifting attitudes toward trans people and the fewer opportunities for community that Boylan has noted over the past two decades since she first came out as trans: “There used to be a lot of [trans-centered] conventions, places where trans people could safely gather for a weekend.” Of her 2003 memoir She’s Not There, Boylan remarks that the book is permeated by “an air of apology,” and “In so many ways, the author of that book is begging the reader—Please, don’t hate me. I’m so sorry.” Today, however, “People coming out as trans…aren’t apologizing for who they are. They aren’t begging for forgiveness or understanding.” Her stated hope for her community, in spite of rising backlash, is that “love will prevail”—the same words her mother used when Boylan told her she was transitioning.
An exploration of gender that effectively balances pathos and humor.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781250261885
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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 frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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