Self-eviscerating, honest, often painful—a superbly realized chronicle of an ever-darkening age.
Sardonic memoir of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll in the time of Trump.
New Yorker staff writer Witt opens by wondering aloud what a given day in 2016 might hold: a writing assignment, perhaps, or yet another mass shooting, or “something…that would indicate the arrival of a new historical epoch, a sign that we were living in an era of meaning and purpose that would be remembered for many decades to come.” Alas, it’s life as usual, which requires tempering reality. Witt elaborates: first she spent a couple of years on the antidepressant Wellbutrin, which “confirmed my love of stimulants.” Then there was cocaine, readily available on the New York party circuit, until, in 2013, she “decided to try as many psychedelic drugs as possible.” Her pharmacopeia won’t threaten Hunter Thompson’s crown, but the drugs flow in torrents for a few years: “As a straight white girl from the Midwest, the archetype of the nerdy midwestern acid freak from the land of crust punks and wooks was an established role I could comfortably inhabit.” Against this backdrop, Witt leads a complicated love life, the most stable episode of which descends into literal madness on the part of a boyfriend alternately paranoid and potentially violent. She is back on Wellbutrin when Trump, whom she’s covered as a journalist, enters the White House: “I didn’t need to do drugs anymore. There were no more parties to go to.” Her return to medication (as opposed to recreational drugs) coincides with that ugly moment when fascism becomes fashion—she prepares herself by reading stacks of books on Europe in the 1930s—and then Covid-19 shuts down the world. The double-edged title notwithstanding, Witt’s bleakly brilliant book is about a time when both health and safety are rare—and getting rarer.
Self-eviscerating, honest, often painful—a superbly realized chronicle of an ever-darkening age.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593317648
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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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