A chatty, hilarious, effervescently entertaining autobiography anchored by self-deprecating humility and humanity.
Queer actor and comedian Hiller reflects on his long road toward eventual success in Hollywood.
Most notable and recognizable for his work on the HBO series Somebody Somewhere, Hiller gets candid about the lean years prior to the upswing in his popularity and desirability as an actor. With passionate candor and humorous self-awareness, the author discusses the midlife crisis that made him consider purchasing a toupee and then seriously contend with an unhealthy relationship to food and his feelings of career underachievement and low self-esteem. As a “middle-aged homosexual,” Hiller, 49, confesses to being a voracious reader of Hollywood actress memoirs, adoring the salacious secrets they spill, and conceding that “there is only so much fighting it before you just have to lean in and admit that you can’t get enough of Candice Bergen talking about her life.” This love of celebrity autobiography lends itself to the book’s chapters, all named for bestselling celebrity memoirs (e.g., My Life So Far by Jane Fonda), and celebrates the pitfalls of an openly gay struggling improv comic and television actor who “clawed, scraped, and fought their way to the lower-middle rung of the ladder.” After having moved to Los Angeles in 2011, Hiller, armed with lofty career goals, soon realized the ill-fated struggle of endless auditions and the humiliation of low-paying bit parts, but his hysterical depiction of a Pilgrim in a Snickers commercial proved surprisingly lucrative. He describes the exasperation in trying for decades to score an agent to represent his talent, and the jobs he took in the meantime to make ends meet, like being the awkward “Naked Guy” standing on Manhattan’s bustling Fifth Avenue in the 2008 film Ghost Town. Elsewhere, Hiller is raw and real in his gushing gratefulness to actress Bridget Everett for recommending him for the career-uplifting role of Joel in Somebody Somewhere. Suffused with charm and sparkling real-life anecdotes on the grueling Hollywood machine, Hiller’s book is a must-read for any performer trying to make it in the entertainment industry.
A chatty, hilarious, effervescently entertaining autobiography anchored by self-deprecating humility and humanity.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781668031858
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 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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