An elegant family narrative of myriad characters traumatized by the deep-seated Russia-Ukrainian struggle.
A Ukrainian American journalist recounts the history of her Ukrainian family within the broader context of Russian aggression since the 1930s.
“I was born in Kyiv, but the first fifteen summers of my life unfolded in [Bereh] on the Vorksla River.” So writes Brussels-based journalist Belim in this poignant, gently unfolding tale. To her, the small village of Bereh was a “second home,” and her great-grandparents Asya and Sergiy were her “second set of parents.” Although she grew up in Chicago with her mother and stepfather, Belim pined for Bereh, yet she rarely visited—until 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and war broke out. Spurred by the rabid pro-Soviet stance of her uncle Vladimir, her father’s older brother, who goaded her with anti-Western propaganda, the author decided she needed to return to the Ukraine of her youth and reconnect with her aging grandmother Valentina, who lived in Kyiv but spent her summers in Bereh. The author writes movingly about helping Valentina with her cherry orchard and extensive garden and cooking traditional Ukrainian meals while weaving in painful memories of Soviet oppression—her relatives’ surviving the Holodomor of 1932-1933, when 4 million Ukrainian peasants died due to Stalin’s disastrous collectivization policy. Belim also writes about how, during the political purge of 1937, her uncle Nikodim inexplicably disappeared after being interrogated at the secret Soviet police headquarters called the Rooster House. “I thought of this uncle who had fought for a free Ukraine and who had paid the highest price as a kindred spirit,” she writes, “and I wanted to restore him to his rightful place in the family story.” While Valentina refused to revisit this haunting history, Belim was able to access Nikodim’s files and discover the truth. Throughout this powerful text, readers will encounter numerous satisfying layers.
An elegant family narrative of myriad characters traumatized by the deep-seated Russia-Ukrainian struggle.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781419767852
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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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