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crazy kid with a “bubbly, oddball person-
ality.” She attended Pratt Institute and
Syracuse University and moved to New
York City in the 1960s to work at
Mademoiselle magazine. She got her start in
fashion making sweaters in her apartment
and selling them to coworkers before
starting her own label and “living on tuna
fish.” In this celebration of female entre-
preneurship, Johnson writes about creating
one’s own opportunities and blazing
forward despite the odds. She discusses
producing affordable clothing on a massive
scale; inventively using the cotton-Lycra
blend in streetwear; and selling her brand
in 2010 to Steve Madden, whom she credits
with saving her business. Along the way,
she writes of being a single mother to
daughter Lulu and being treated for breast
cancer, and tells wild stories about her
three brief marriages: to John Cale of the
Velvet Underground; a burger flipper and
drug addict named Joe; and a wealthy
control freak (identity withheld) who
bugged her apartment. “I’ve had great
boyfriends but I chose to marry the bad
ones,” she admits. Filled with nostalgic
photos, this upbeat memoir captures the
spirit and irreverence of Johnson’s colorful
personality and clothing. (Apr.)★ Calder: The Conquest of Space,
the Later Years, 1940–1976
Jed Perl. Knopf, $60 (688p) ISBN 978-0-451-
49411-5
Art critic Perl (Calder: The Conquest of
Time) completes his magisterial biography
of sculptor Alexander Calder (1898–1976)
with this lavishly illustrated volume,
revealing Calder’s transformation from
playful American master to international
figure. First achieving acclaim for his
mobiles, Calder later gained notoriety for
“monumental objects that celebrate the
uprising of the human spirit.” Improvising
a bohemian life in Connecticut with his
wife, Louisa, during WWII, the artist
welcomed refugee artists such as Marc
Chagall, Piet Mondrian, and André Masson
as he sculpted unconventional materials
and space into what Calder called “a new
form of art.” Calder later experimented
with art forms in his constellations and
sculptures depicting weightlessness (as
with The Dancer and On One Knee). The
artist gained international acclaim in the
1950s as foreign audiences “saw in histraining camp. Any reader with an interest
in cultural history or a love of romance will
find this a book to savor. (May)After the Blast: The Ecological
Recovery of Mount St. Helens
Eric Wagner. Univ. of Washington, $29.95
(224p) ISBN 978-0-295-74693-7
This revealing work by Wagner (Penguins
in the Desert), who has a PhD in biology,
takes a wide-ranging look at the ecological
effects of the 1980 Mount St. Helens
volcanic eruption. Wagner begins with the
eruption’s various stages, from the enor-
mous landslide triggered, to the mudflows
or “lahars,” to the 15 mile-high column of
ash sent into the
sky. He then
describes how
U.S. Forest
Service ecolo-
gists Jerry
Franklin and
Jim Sedell and
USFS geologist
Fred Swanson,
arriving at the
site weeks later,
were surprised to discover shoots of fire-
weed already poking through the ash,
indicating the return of life after the
explosion. Wagner then profiles individual
researchers who tracked the recovery of
different plant and animal populations on
the mountain. Some, like research ecologist
Charlie Crisafulli, devoted much of their
careers to the research, in his case involving
pocket gophers, while others, such as
biologist Evelyn Merrill, focused on the
mountain’s elk herd, only spent a few years
there. Observing each scientist as they
conduct their work, Wagner captures
their personalities in quick but memorable
sketches, summing up Swanson as a story-
teller and Crisafulli as, in Swanson’s words,
“the data monster.” This is a superb look at
scientists and science at work. (Apr.)Betsey: A Memoir
Betsey Johnson, with Mark Vitulano. Viking,
$28 (288p) ISBN 978-0-525-56141-5
Fashion designer Johnson talks about
clothes, romance, and owning a business
in a breezy memoir cowritten with former
employee Vitulano, who captures Johnson’s
spirited voice. Born in Connecticut in
1942, Johnson was a school-hating, boy-and restaurant owner husband, Brandon,
who responded with a mix of kindness and
fear. Just as “astronomers know that every
star is in motion and that each moves along
its own trajectory, according to its own
properties,” Wizenberg writes, she realized
she needed to let go of rigid definitions
about identity and face the challenges of
navigating the complexities of love.
Throughout, she integrates observations
from well-known researchers, in particular
the work of Lisa Diamond, who found that
the norm among women “was not stability
in sexual attraction and identity but
change.” Wizenberg writes with a remark-
able openness about being true to herself
and to others, and gives those looking to
understand the complicated issue of sex-
uality a compassionate example of the
many forms that love takes. This honest
and moving memoir will enlighten and
educate those seeking to understand their
true selves. (May)
★ Love in the Blitz: The Long-Lost
Letters of a Brilliant Young Woman
to Her Beloved on the Front
Eileen Alexander, edited by David McGowan
and David Crane. Harper, $28.99 (480p)
ISBN 978-0-06-288880-8
This collection of letters written by
literary translator Alexander (1917–1986)
to her future husband, Gershon Ellenbogen,
between July 1939 and March 1946 proves
a remarkable aggregate of public and
personal history. It begins with, per editor
Crane, a “remarkably forgiving letter” from
Alexander to Ellenbogen after she is badly
injured in a car crash while he, a friend
and fellow Cambridge student, is driving.
The ensuing correspondence (of which his
half is lost) traces their deepening bond, as
he serves in the RAF and she in the Army
bureaucracy, and shares details of ordinary
British life during WWII, perhaps most
dramatically of blitz-era London. “I’ve been
nervous in Air-Raids before, but last night
I was Terrified,” Alexander writes, noting
elsewhere, “gas-mask practice is at 10 and
I’ve left my mask at home again.” She also
shares “libelous” gossip about her friends
(“Darling Jean Swills Pink Gin with
Terrific Swagger—It’s my private opinion
that she’s a bit of a Wild Oat”) and describes
familial roadblocks to their relationship,
as when her parents are scandalized by her
plans to stay with Ellenbogen near his