A well-crafted story of intergenerational striving on the path “from cruelty to commerce.”
The head of an eminent Black-owned construction firm recounts her family’s long history in the building trades.
McKissack Daniel opens her memoir, which moves fluently from present to past and back again, with a distant ancestor who, at the age of 11, crossed the Middle Passage and, enslaved, was named Moses. William McKissack, the owner, “trained his slaves to be expert artisans in areas like carpentry and bricklaying,” and they were so much in demand for their skills that, with Moses now a foreman, they traveled with some degree of freedom throughout the South. The following generation of McKissacks relocated to Nashville, with Moses II building the Maxwell House Hotel and, after emancipation, becoming a construction entrepreneur in a time and place where the KKK was vigorous in attacking Blacks who “showed too much independence.” Fast forward to 2002: The author is the head of a firm that, although successful for generations, had to reckon with institutional and societal racism at every level—for example, during the Jim Crow era, when Blacks were barred from building for white customers and were forced to “carefully calibrate their demeanor…to ensure that they projected the proper deference.” By the author’s account, plenty of hurdles still remain. For instance, her firm was “grandfathered” past a New York state requirement that architecture businesses be owned 100% by licensed architects (as hers had long been) but then had its license revoked after white firms objected, angered by another requirement that they give 10% of their contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses. “In America,” she writes, “so-called ‘progress’ often drops you off right where you started.” Undeterred, she writes of pressing on all the same, taking part in a massive Brooklyn rebuilding project, branching into international markets, and bidding on new contracts that promise to keep the company busy for years to come.
A well-crafted story of intergenerational striving on the path “from cruelty to commerce.”Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781668033999
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Black Privilege Publishing/Atria
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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 charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.
The late heavy metal legend considers his mortality in this posthumous memoir.
“I ain’t ready to go anywhere,” writes Osbourne in the opening pages of his new memoir. “It’s good being alive. I like it. I want to be here with my family.” Given the context—Osbourne died on July 22, 2025, two weeks after the publisher announced the news of this book—it’s undeniably sad. But the rest of the text sees the Black Sabbath singer confronting the health struggles of his last years with dark humor and something approaching grace. The memoir begins in 2018; he wrote an earlier one, I Am Ozzy, in 2010. He tells of a staph infection he suffered that proved to be the start of a long, painful battle with various illnesses—soon after, he contracted a flu, which morphed into pneumonia. A spinal injury caused by a fall followed, causing him to undergo a series of surgeries and leaving him struggling with intense pain. And then there was his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, the treatment of which was complicated by his longtime struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Osbourne peppers the chronicle of his final years with anecdotes from his past, growing up in Birmingham, England, and playing with—and then being fired from—Black Sabbath, and some of his most well-known antics (yes, he does address biting the heads off of a dove and a bat). He writes candidly and regretfully about the time he viciously attacked his wife, Sharon—the book is in many ways a love letter to her and his children. The memoir showcases Osbourne’s wit and charm; it’s rambling and disorganized, but so was he. It functions as both a farewell and a confession, and fans will likely find much to admire in this account. “Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder,” he writes. “And at some point, I’m gonna have to let him in.”
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538775417
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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