A well-written, profoundly empathetic memoir from an entrepreneur with a very bright future.
An award-winning Black designer, entrepreneur, and activist reflects on her past accomplishments and future ambitions.
James has found success in a variety of ways: designer of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s iconic “Tax the Rich” dress for the 2021 Met Gala; founder of the Fifteen Percent Pledge, an organization that calls on corporations to donate 15% of their “shelf space” to Black-owned businesses; and winner of the Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund Award for her company, Brother Vellies. In her debut memoir, the author chronicles her happy childhood growing up with her Ghanaian father and ethnically ambiguous mother, who was “adopted as an infant and never knew anything about her biological parents.” During her early years, James thrived under her grandmother’s loving care, but then her mother married a physically abusive man who also sexually assaulted James. “I did not tell my mother what he had done to me at that time because I already knew that she was battling for her life,” writes the author. While both women eventually escaped the abuse, the marriage significantly damaged James’ relationship with her mother. At the same time, it “allowed me to believe that I could forge my own path.” Traveling to Africa, she learned how to make shoes at workshops in places like Namibia, South Africa, and Kenya and how to combine her creativity and fashion sense to found her company. Ultimately, the author’s world travels and keen sense of justice led her to not only business success, but also social justice activism, which has informed her production models and her philanthropic involvement with Black Lives Matter and other movements. Throughout the text, James is vulnerable and frank, cultivating a narrative voice that is both intimate and captivating; on the line level, her language is impressively lyrical.
A well-written, profoundly empathetic memoir from an entrepreneur with a very bright future.Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239452
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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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