Bernstein, Jamie. “Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein”, Harper, 2018.

An Intimate Look at Bernstein

Amos Lassen

Jamie Bernstein is the oldest daughter of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein and she shares with us offers a rare and intimate look at her father on what would have been his 100^th birthday. Bernstein was “chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, a television star, a humanitarian, a friend of the powerful and influential, and the life of every party.” Leonard Bernstein was an enormous celebrity during one of the headiest periods of American cultural life. To Jamie, he was the man in the scratchy brown bathrobe who smelled of cigarettes; a jokester and compulsive teacher who enthused about Beethoven and the Beatles; the insomniac whose 4 a.m. composing breaks involved feeding the baby. He taught his daughter to love the world in all its beauty and complexity.

As we enter Bernstein’s life, we meet a fantastic set of characters: the Kennedys, Mike Nichols, John Lennon, Richard Avedon, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, and Betty (Lauren) Bacall.

This is an intimate meditation on a complex and sometimes troubled man, the family he raised, and the music he composed. This is both a moving and often hilarious read. It is also a great American story about one of the greatest Americans of the modern age. Jamie Bernstein gives us a picture of the Bernstein family, especially her parents, Lenny and the much-loved Felicia and at the same time she writes about growing up as the child of a legend “—or, for that matter, as anybody’s child.” Her childhood was as fraught as it was charmed and her book is “beautifully written and unflinchingly courageous… expression of love, exasperation, amazement and forgiveness.” Bernstein brought the same magic that he brought to music to his family.

Before you sit down to red, make sure you clear the day because once you begin this book, I doubt you will be taking time to do anything else.

Eribon, Didier. “Returning to Reims”, Alan Lane, 2018

Sexuality and Class

Amos Lassen

Didier Eribon tells us how sexual identity can clash with other aspects of a person’s identity from his own personal experiences. He does so by using the tools of sociological inquiry and critical theory. He grew up in a working class family in Reims, France but became a Parisian intellectual. His family was conservative, as is the case many times in provincial France yet he became one of France’s leading writes despite his humble beginnings.

After the death of his father(in Reims), Eribon returned home where he again met the working class world that he had known as youth but pushed into the back of this mind. He had moved to Paris some 30 years earlier. Eribon had always considered his father to be a homophobe; an intolerable bigot but with his father death, he began intense self-reflection and realized that his father, like others in Reims, was the product of the intersection of domination and culture. He begins to investigate his own past, his family’s history and the road that he had personally journeyed on. Eribon comes to the conclusions about the class system in France, the role of education in the creation of self, how sexual and cultural identities are formed and the latest history of French politics which allowed for the shifting voting patterns of the working class as seen in his own family who had moved from the Communist Party to the National Front.

This personal reflection is also a look at the direction that leftist politics have taken in today’s contemporary world. Eribon’s own questions about social class, sexuality, and intellectual community show us a “ complex, frequently conflicted confluence of social and psychic identities.”

I remember when the book was first published in France in 2009 and the enthusiastic reception it received but it took us almost five years until an English translation was available. We are lucky to have a very readable and very beautiful translation which makes this not only a fascinating and compelling read but one that is totally educative. The following quote by Eribon himself summarizes briefly what you will find here:

“On thinking the matter through, it doesn’t seem exaggerated to assert that my coming out of the sexual closet, my desire to assume and assert my homosexuality, coincided within my personal trajectory with my shutting myself up inside what I might call a class closet”.

Bensie, Dennis Milam. “Thirty Years a Dresser”, Coffeetown Press 2018.

Behind the Scenes

Amos Lassen

As a teenager in the early 1980s, Dennis Bensie knew he wanted to be in theater. Early on, he realized that becoming an actor was a goal he would not reach and so he began to work with costumes. He did this at first with summer stock companies and then with union houses. He was ready to work wherever he could find it. He soon learned that a dresser in the theater was also a nurse, a psychologist, a tailor, a personal shopper, a magician, a bodyguard, a maid, a scout, and a confidant.

Bensie takes us behind-the-scenes and shares the dish and drama during a wide range of productions including Metamorphoses, The Light in the Piazza, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion–The Musical to The Sound of Music (three times). He has stories about Lynn Redgrave, Rosie O’Donnell, Freddy Kruger’s mother, and a nameless Tony Award winner. Having once worked backstage as dramaturge for a major production of Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer”, I have to agree with Bensie that the best seat in the house is backstage. You not only get to see the show but you get all the gossip as well.

Bensie shares many unique behind the scenes moments and fun perspectives making everyone trying to get a job backstage. This is so much morethan a memoir of behind the scenes. It is a look at what happens back stage and if anyone should know that it is Dennis Bensie who has been backstage (as a dresser) for more than thirty years. I have no idea how he can remember all that he includes but I am glad that he has.

Bensie has worked on some of the great (as well as some not-so-great shows. A dresser has the job of getting the actor(s) changed quickly and ready for the next scene. Most of the time, costume changes move smoothly but not always and we see that were times when parts of costumes were overlooked or left behind. Bensie gives us some wonderfully funny examples having to do with missing underclothing.

We forget that it is possible to see the audience from backstage once in a while and we have stories here of people in the audience who did not behave as they should have. Cell phones add to these, for example. Backstage cell phones can be problems as well and there are actors who seem to not have the ability to hang up. But cell phones are only part of the issue about the behavior of the actors themselves. For those stories, you will have to get a copy of the book.

Bensie’s stories are just fun and we actually learn a bit bout human behavior by reading them. Whether it is the person or the situation that leads to the humor, it makes no difference since it is all in fun.

Poole, Eric. “Excuse Me While I Slip into Someone More Comfortable”, Rosetta Books , 2018.

Looking Back

Amos Lassen

I firmly believe that we all should be able to laugh at ourselves yet for whatever reason, we do not enjoy doing so. Nonetheless Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris who not only are able to do but to also have a career doing just that. Eric Poole is ready to join them and in “Excuse Me While I Slip into Someone More Comfortable”, he shares both the happiness and pain he endured during his childhood years and yes, and a lot of it is very funny.

We go back to 1997 when Poole was a very talented high school trumpet player with one ear that worked fine. He was the target of the bullies in his world. His mother seemed to always be busy cleaning whatever she could with Lemon Pledge. Poole wants to be a star and he doesn’t care what kind of star— he just knows that is what he wants. He worships Barry Manilow, Halston, Tommy Tune, and Shirley MacLaine. He emulates these celebrities in hopes of becoming anyone but himself. Living in St. Louis does not situation as we can well imagine. As an adolescent he looks around trying to see where would be the best place to bring and use his talents (and we must understand these are the talents that HE thinks he has. He is not sure what he wants to be and his choices are “oh so” gay— A trumpet soloist (not so gay by oral sex lovers), perhaps an actor who can sing and dance or maybe a fashion designer. These are certainly not the kinds of jobs that are always out there. He also would like to be the son that brings his parents’ joy and pride. He ultimately learns that in order to succeed at anything, he must figure out who he really is. Here is his story— it is a

“journey from self-delusion to acceptance is simultaneously hysterical, heartfelt, and inspiring.” And as we read, we laugh and cry along with him. He stays in the closet of his won making until he is finally ready to come out and never return. His stories are real and from the heart and the heartland. We do not get a lot of gay memoirs about the Midwest so this is a special treat and the fact that it is fun read makes it much more special.

There is also great sensitivity here and there are moments that you will tearing up at the same time that you are grinning. There are not many books that can do that. Writer Poole has no problem saying things that we think but will probably never say and just for that, this is a book worth reading… but be prepared, you will find so much more.

Zeischegg, Christopher (Danny Wylde). “Body to Job”, Rare Bird Books, 2018.

An Adult Film Career

Amos Lassen

Former porn star, Christopher Zeischegg (aka Danny Wylde) has written a wonderful memoir of his adult film career and the life that came after he exited the movies. While this is not the first memoir by an ex-porn star I have read, it is by far the best and I suspect that this is because Zeischegg took the time to hone his writing in two other novels (reviewed here). Zeischegg writes about youthful naiveté, sex worker love, pro-porn activism, disenchantment, and violence and he does so as a man who knows how to write. I first must tell you that the book is quite explicit in the way it looks at vulnerability, longing, terror, and life. It is also unforgettable.

I have always thought that those who become porn stars are condemned to be jaded for the rest of their lives and I am glad that this is not true, especially for Chris Zeischegg who shows us how we remain human in spite of, and because of, our experiences. The read here is a journey that takes us through periods of “lust, numbness, love, and the feeling that comes from ‘somewhere just as deep as love”. Zeischegg emphasizes that a porn star begins as a person and ends as a person.

Knowing the quality of the author’s writing, I decided that I would read the entire book in one sitting and if you can do the same, I recommend doing so. For one thing, we get an excellent deconstruction of the sex trade and of the stigma of the sex worker the and bisexual male stigma. We immediately sense the author’s vulnerability and confidence.

I have always believed that to work in the sex trade is to live a life that is very dark and it is so here but with the author lighting up that world so that we can what the darkness hides.

Zeischegg came to the world of porn where (and I quote this because it is beautifully written) “the dark, rapey landscape of homophobic, sexist porn culture where intimacy is ill-advised and the human heart aches eternal.” We meet a man whose desires are pushed aside in a world where sex is work and not an expression of love. Sex was a mean to survive financially; it was a paycheck that changed it from an emotion to a routine. Christopher was a crossover performer (bisexual porn performer) who found no place in either gay and straight groups and we are with him as he moves from paying john to girlfriend to boyfriend and to performer on screen. I immediately saw that there was nonsense of direction but there was almost non-stop movement. He experienced a life of fluid sexuality that was as naked as he was.

I think what surprised me most about Christopher Zeischegg is that he is not only a fine writer but he has a sense of awareness about who he is and the world in which he leaves, In a way this invalidates how we usually think of porn stars (although I have to hand to Stormy Daniels especially if she is able to bring down the President). As I mentioned earlier, this is not the first book that I have read by

Zeischegg so I already knew that I liked his writing. What really drew me to this book is his honesty about his life and about who he is. He has the ability to bring together fact, fiction, poetry, art, violence, love, humor and magical realism and he does so with style and grace (not a word commonly used on porn stars). Zeischegg sees the sex industry as just another option for the smart, educated, and aimless until he realizes differently.

When I first read Chris Zeischegg I knew that he is special. His voice is fresh and original and I knew that there were stories that would come out that would surprise us by their quality. I love that he can make the personal become universal and global.

We see the raw humanity behind porn where I doubt we consider that reality even exists. Porn is a fantasy world that thrives almost entirely on what is not real. Zeischegg shares that dark word with fearlessness. I do not usually read porn (although there are a couple of writers that write what I call literary porn that I am always ready to read). This too is porn or at the very least very bold. But what we have here is so beautifully written and so sincere that I am okay saying that it is XXX but I am willing to call it porn.

There are shocks and revelations aplenty here and there is sorrow, boredom, desperation, happiness and craziness. Here is one little story that I love. “Of course, there were all the practical reasons for doing porn: money, validation, trying to get through school, etc. But in regards to my desire to write, porn gave me material to explore. I didn’t need to go out and research something. I was living it. The research was my life.”

The book blurs the line between memoir and fiction making the reader guess what is real and what isn’t and this was fun for me. Even though I do not give stars or ratings to the books that I review, I am making an exception by giving this book five big fat shiny stars and totally recommend it.

McBride, Sarah. “Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality”, Crown Archetype, 2018.

Identity and Equality

Amos Lassen

Sarah McBride is the first transgender person to speak at a national political convention and she did so in 2016 at the age of twenty-six. She had struggled with the decision to come out and not just to her family but also to the students of American University, where she was serving as student body president. She had known she was a girl from her earliest memories, but it wasn’t until her Facebook post announcing the truth went viral that she then understood realized just how much impact her story could have on the United States.

Now, four years later, McBride is one of the nation’s most prominent transgender activists. She advocates inclusive legislation, and addressed the country in the midst of a heated presidential election. She has also found her first love and future husband, Andy, a trans man and fellow activist, who complemented her in every way but that’s another story. . . . or is it?

I was filled with emotion as I read and I realized that McBride is the kind of hero that the trans community needs. Her story is one of love and loss and what it means to be transgender.

“Tomorrow Will Be Different” is McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights.  Important political and cultural milestones are also part of McBride’s personal journey into a personal journey and she reminds us that: “We must never be a country that says there’s only one way to love, only one way to look, and only one way to live.” We must agree that even with all of the freedoms that the LGBT community has achieved that the fight for equality and freedom has only just begun (especially when we see who is running this country today).

The story is touching yet it also makes us think and there were times that my eyes filled with tears. Only those who have been born into the wrong body can possibly understand what a trans person has to deal with and this book really knocked it out. In the lest few years, McBride has experienced enough for several lifetimes and she shares both the highs and the lows with us. This book is more than a memoir, it is also a thoughtful analysis of contemporary political issues including bathroom access and trans health care.” It is a brave and moving story that will inspire and galvanize readers to fight for LGBTQ rights. McBride defines what is at stake, and how we can do better.

McBride deftly balances her life story with revolutionary fervor. With a leader like her, we can believe that it indeed tomorrow will be different for not just the LGBT community but for everyone.