A harrowing, engrossing story of survival amid painful circumstances.
A moving and intense tale of the author’s experiences in an apocalyptic cult.
“I grew up on a mountain, preparing for the Apocalypse,” writes Dowd at the beginning of this enthralling narrative, which describes her upbringing in the 1970s and ’80s in the Field, a religious cult founded by her grandfather in 1931. She spent her childhood preparing for the imminent end of days on “a sixteen-acre undeveloped camp sitting on the San Andreas Fault.” As a young girl, she underwent extreme military training, tests of her pain tolerance, and months of abandonment by her parents, who were frequently on a national tour known as “the Trip.” Forbidden to speak to “Outsiders,” unless she was raising money for the Field, Dowd turned to the landscape for solace and survival, drawing on her substantial knowledge of edible flora. “Violence is everywhere, and no one around here seems to care, least of all the God of my fathers,” she writes, delineating years of abuse, forced hunger, and neglect. Taught that holding hands out of wedlock is grounds for expulsion, and even affection between mother and child is sinful, she grew up without any outward indication of love. Certain that her family would readily sacrifice her if asked, she writes, “as descendants by blood, I think the only real distinction my cousins and I have from other leaders’ kids is knowing Grandpa would kill us if God asks him to.” Heartbreaking and difficult to put down, this book lyrically chronicles an impressive rise out of illness, poverty, and indoctrination. As she struggled with growing into a woman in an unsafe and patriarchal environment, Dowd realized she needed to escape. However, she notes, “freeing oneself is the first step; claiming ownership of that freed self has been a lifelong journey.” Leaving the cult meant losing her family and understanding of the world, with only her ecological knowledge and mental toughness to carry her forward.
A harrowing, engrossing story of survival amid painful circumstances.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781643751856
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 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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