Items related to Sleeping Arrangements
Synopsis
Harper Lee: “A beautiful story I shall cherish for years to come.” Laura Shaine Cunningham’s memoir of being orphaned at age eight and raised by two bachelor uncles in the Bronx- “In the glow of Yankee Stadium Twi-Night doubleheaders”, has become one of the most beloved classics of contemporary autobiographical literature. When her single mother dies, her bachelor Uncles Len and Gabe step in- a wildly divergent pair- Uncle Len is a self-styled cross between Sam Spade and Abe Lincoln, who travels on “secret missions”, carrying only a manila envelope- while Uncle Gabe composes and belts out Jewish Gospel songs and proposes to every woman he meets... Len makes popcorn for breakfast and Gabe warps the wooden floor with bleach. Their lives taken on a similar odd angle- and then they are joined by the grandmother, Etka from Minsk who carries her own memoir “Philosophy for Women” and begins most sentences with “Plato and I believe...” To top it off, they get a cocker spaniel puppy who “isn’t a dog but a democrat.” Excerpted in The New Yorker, presented at Selected Shorts, read by Linda Lavin, the book, published first by Alfred Knopf and then by Plume and Riverhead Books (Penguin Putnam), the book soon became a bestseller in the U.S. and was featured in The New York Times magazine, which ran several excerpts, including the popular Uncle Food, Bachelor Uncles, and a Hers column on being raised by men. Her column devoted to her single mother appeared in The New York Observer. Laura may have been raised by two eccentric men who knew nothing about running a household but they knew how to love. Her family story is interwoven with her adventures with her little girl friends as they played forbidden games in the “Babylonian Bronx.” Anne Tyler:” Reads like a novel. You may find yourself sitting very quietly, mulling over the marvels of this truly wonderful book.” Jessica Mitford: “Absolutely delightful...a terrific treat!” Muriel Spark: “A great pleasure...very interesting, moving and amusing.” Chaim Potok: “Wise, sobering and witty.” Critics raved: “Funny, sad...A model memoir... irreverent and generous” - Michiko Kakutani New York Times “Compassion and wit are a rare literary combination but Sleeping Arrangements is illuminated by both” - Los Angeles Times “Cunningham transforms her “Bronx of the emotions” into the ‘Babylonian Bronx’, a world simmering with sex and death and intrigue...Sharp- witted and funny but never mean ..."-The Wall Street Journal. “Comic, touching, delightful...the kind of book you buy multiple copies of to send to your mother and best friends..."- People “Reads like a novel...You may find yourself sitting very quietly, mulling over the marvels of this truly wonderful book.” - Anne Tyler, The Baltimore Sun
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Laura Shaine Cunningham's books include the novels Dreams of Rescue (to be published by Bloomsbury in 2006) and Beautiful Bodies and one other memoir, A Place in the Country. She lives in New York and writes regularly for the theatre (Beautiful Bodies leads a dual life as a play with global popularity) and for publications such as the New Yorker, New York Times and Atlantic Monthly.
From Publishers Weekly
"Inside our apartment, we are gradually creating customs and inventing our own special language." So eight-year-old Lily describes life with two bachelor uncles in the Bronx of the 1950s. The unorthodox arrangement came about after the death of Lily's mother, Rosie--who invented a war-hero husband, improvised his death in the Korean war and bequeathed to her daughter a persistent hunger for information about him. We follow Lily through her adolescence, aided and abetted by uncles Len and Gabe, who keep house, cook erratically, pursue their own dreams and tend their precocious niece. This odd, yet creative, household was a happy one, even as they coped with the ups and downs of Lily's schooling and her indoctrination into junior high-school society, where she learned the sexual ploys of her peers, entertainingly detailed here. In an effective memoir that delineates a real, if idiosyncratic, world, Cunningham captures a special slice of New York with humor and integrity.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherMemoir House
- Publication date2017
- ISBN 10 0998826405
- ISBN 13 9780998826400
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages174
- Rating
(No Available Copies)
Search Books: Create a WantIf you know the book but cannot find it on AbeBooks, we can automatically search for it on your behalf as new inventory is added. If it is added to AbeBooks by one of our member booksellers, we will notify you!
Create a Want
