An engrossing, rigorously documented study of a 20th-century literary trailblazer.
A penetrating exploration of the life and work of the acclaimed novelist, memoirist, and pioneering figure in gay culture.
While Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) may be best known for Goodbye to Berlin, which drew on his experiences in Weimar-era Berlin and inspired the musical Cabaret, this new biography by Bucknell, director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, astutely highlights the considerable merits of his other novels and candid autobiographical works. The author renders a sweeping portrait of Isherwood's remarkable life journey, during which he forged indelible connections with many of the era's preeminent literary and artistic figures. Early on, Isherwood moved within an influential circle of writers that included W.H. Auden, E.M. Forster, and Steven Spender. In 1939, he moved to Hollywood and pursued screenwriting, while also initiating a spiritual conversion to Vedanta under the guidance of Indian monk Swami Prabhavananda. Over the ensuing years, his vast circle expanded, bringing in Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and David Hockney, among others. Bucknell dedicates perhaps too many pages to Isherwood's early years, privileged upbringing, Cambridge education, and elements of his complex family dynamics (including his father's death in World War II and his suffocating relationship with his mother), but this detailed exploration lays the foundation for her explorations of her subject’s later writing and the complexities that shaped his intimate relationships, particularly his romances with various men at different stages of his life, most enduringly with artist Don Bachardy. Throughout, Bucknell urgently draws attention to Isherwood’s courageous life as an openly gay man and his vital role in advancing gay liberation through his writing: "He saw from his career's outset that he must make homosexuality attractive to mainstream audiences if he was to change their view of it, and he worked to do this in all his writing in different ways.”
An engrossing, rigorously documented study of a 20th-century literary trailblazer.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780374119362
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
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