Bold and illuminating writing about autism.
A memoir explores what it means to live with autism.
Born in 2002, Glisik was diagnosed with autism when she was 3 years old. Doctors conceded that they were uncertain that she would ever be able to speak. Growing up, she found that writing “opened a window to the world” that she thought was “locked shut.” In this book, the author endeavors to come to know herself by reflecting on how autism has shaped her life. She touches on key life events, such as the experience of being an “American kid” who relocated to Slovenia in the third grade. But the memoir’s emphasis is on describing the emotional effects of autism. Glisik addresses in detail how aspects of the world would overwhelm her as a child, such as everyday sounds and contact with specific materials. As an adult, she explains how she struggled to “tune into” all forms of nonverbal communication. The author also recounts coming out as a lesbian with autism. This work can be read as a stand-alone or in tandem with Don’t Look Away: My Child Has Autism (2022), which offers the perspective of Glisik’s mother, Mojca. Glisik is a smartly descriptive writer who displays the ability to place readers in her position. Her actions as a child, which perplexed others, are explained with clarity—such as her “becoming a human police siren” in reaction to invasive noises: “My high-frequency shrieks would draw my attention away from those hostile vibrations in the air. After all, what’s more soothing than my own screams?” The author’s writing also demonstrates an acute self-awareness. With regard to her obsessive behavior, such as repeated hand-washing, she writes: “I’ve been caught in the same Catch 22: listening to those obsessive thoughts and acting out my compulsions eased the anxiety, but it also made me downright miserable.” Glisik is also mordantly incisive when it comes to the stereotyping of autism, such as referring to it as a “superpower”: “Telling me…that the reason I missed my mom’s graduation party was because of a superpower is merely insulting.” The author’s brilliantly expressive memoir is important: It not only opens readers’ eyes to how an individual with autism feels, but also articulates the burden of skewed societal expectations.
Bold and illuminating writing about autism.Pub Date: May 23, 2022
ISBN: 9789619544846
Page Count: 258
Publisher: IGM LEGACY d.o.o.
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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