An endearing underdog story that will have readers cheering for the author from a troubled beginning to a sweet, happy end.
The comedian and actor wasn’t kidding around when he titled his memoir.
Scheer, best known for his work on The League, Black Monday, and Veep, begins with some harrowing tales of abuse from his stepfather that he balances by recognizing how they helped make him the successful father, husband, and entertainer he is today. “All the chaos and abuse were so normalized that only in the retelling do I realize just how abnormal they were,” he writes, adding that there were moments when he felt victorious, “like the time I outran a pitchfork he threw at my back.” It’s these triumphs, cut with his self-deprecating humor, that makes Scheer’s memoir so charming and uplifting, despite the often difficult subject matter of his childhood on Long Island. Given his storytelling experience as an actor and a podcaster on How Did This Get Made?—which he co-hosts with his wife, June Diane Raphael, and fellow League actor Jason Mantzoukas—the author manages to make it all entertaining. Even his story about learning that he was lactose intolerant after a serious health scare at Disney World becomes hilarious in retrospect. Scheer also writes about his love of improv, especially with the Upright Citizens Brigade; the auditioning process; and his enjoyment of movies and working at Blockbuster Video. However, the author treats his higher-profile jobs, like his regular gig on VH1’s Best Week Ever, as asides to his life with his wife and family. It’s part of the serious point Scheer wants to make, despite the humor. He chronicles his journey through abuse and into the life he dreamed of to show how he did it: through therapy, self-acceptance, and prioritizing his family.
An endearing underdog story that will have readers cheering for the author from a troubled beginning to a sweet, happy end.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9780063293717
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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