An intimate glimpse into an important writer’s life.
A self-portrait culled from the Pulitzer Prize winner’s journals.
From her 65 journals and notebooks deposited at Emory University, unavailable to researchers until 2040, Walker (b. 1944) has selected entries from 1965 to 2000, documenting her rise as one of the most celebrated writers of her time, winner of the 1983 Pulitzer and National Book Award for The Color Purple, among many other awards. Introduced and annotated by critic and biographer Boyd, the volume chronicles Walker’s civil rights activism, marriage to a White Jewish lawyer, motherhood, divorce, affairs with men and women, blossoming sexuality, religion, money troubles, real estate ventures, and, not least, her writing career. At 21, a student at Sarah Lawrence, Walker wondered, “What am I really? And what do I want to do with me? Somehow,” she mused, “I know I shall never feel settled with myself and life until I have a profession I can love.” That profession became poet, novelist, and essayist. In 1968, her first poetry collection appeared, and two years later, a novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland. She became a sought-after speaker and teacher—“In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” the title essay of her collection of Womanist Prose, was first delivered as a talk. “My God, what do black women writers want?” she was often asked. “We want freedom. Freedom to be ourselves. To write the unwritable. To say the unsayable. To think the unthinkable.” Sadly, Walker realized that to be in the public eye meant being vulnerable to attack, smarting under vehement criticism of some fictional portrayals. One story, “Roselily,” was removed from a 10th grade standardized test in California, “considered anti-religious by the Coalition for Traditional Values, or some such….This is all so ignorant it’s hard to focus on it. Yet it’s tiring, too.” The well-populated volume features many of Walker’s notable friends, including Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis, and lovers who brought delight and, sometimes, despair. Readers will look forward to the planned second volume.
An intimate glimpse into an important writer’s life.Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7315-5
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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