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FALLING FROM DISGRACE

A poignant, absorbing story of overcoming religious trauma.

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Dietz explores her religiously conservative upbringing in this debut memoir.

Despite living in California’s Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s, a region famed for its place in post-war progressive sociocultural and political movements, the author grew up in a deeply conservative environment. The book opens in 1976 as Dietz joined her family, devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, on a vacation to Utah making a pilgrimage to “Mormon Mecca” to visit the Salt Lake City Temple. Awed by the city’s broad streets as a wide-eyed 9-year-old, Dietz recalls her father’s sincere explanation that, as a prophet and leader of the nascent religious capital, Brigham Young “knew there would be cars before there were cars.” The author’s childhood commitment to her family’s faith is juxtaposed with her later ostracism as a young adult when she ran away from home. “Shamed and shunned” by her family and church as a sexually active teenager, she became disillusioned with the hypocrisy of a religion founded by a man whom she describes as “a cheating, polygamous, predatory hoarder of wives.” The author writes that she became cynical about the patriarchal nature of her tightknit Mormon community and “desensitized to [the] suffering” of her mother. While she frequently complained about being “stuck” in a one-sided, domineering marriage, her mother, per the book, was “willing to settle for helplessness” rather than push back against religious norms. With an MFA in creative nonfiction (Dietz was the editor of a literary magazine published by Pacific University), the author is a skilled writer whose engaging narrative effectively reveals how religious standards of devotion and piety can be abused by those in power. Her bracing condemnation of the church is balanced by a “softened…perspective” developed later in life that separates abusive power dynamics from nostalgic memories of the idealized faith of her childhood. In an effort to encourage other women who have been ostracized by religious families and communities, the book concludes with a list of “Questions for Discussion” for personal reflection or group discussion.

A poignant, absorbing story of overcoming religious trauma.

Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023

ISBN: 9781947976450

Page Count: 248

Publisher: Cynren Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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TANQUERAY

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

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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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LOVE, PAMELA

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

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The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.

According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023

ISBN: 9780063226562

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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