Legendary writer Trevanian brings readers his most personal novel yet: a funny, deeply felt, often touching coming-of-age novel set in 1930s America. Six-year-old Jean-Luc LaPointe, his little sister, and his spirited but vulnerable young mother have been abandoned—again—by his father, a charming con artist. With no money and nowhere else to go, the LaPointes create a fragile nest in a tenement building at 238 North Pearl Street in Albany, New York. For the next eight years, through the Great Depression and Second World War, they live in the heart of the Irish slum, surrounded by ward heelers, unemployment, and grinding poverty. Pearl Street is also home to a variety of “crazyladies”: Miss Cox, the feared and ridiculed teacher who ignites Jean-Luc’s imagination; Mrs. Kane, who runs a beauty parlor/fortune-telling salon in the back of her husband’s grocery store; Mrs. Meehan, the desperate, harried matriarch of a thuggish family across the street; lonely Mrs. McGivney, who spends every day tending to her catatonic husband, a veteran of the Great War; and Jean-Luc’s own unconventional, vivacious mother. Colorful though it is, Jean-Luc never stops dreaming of a way out of the slum, and his mother’s impossible expectations are both his driving force and his burden. As legendary writer Trevanian lovingly re-creates the neighborhood of his youth in this funny, deeply moving coming-of-age novel, he also paints a vivid portrait of a neighborhood, a city, a nation in turmoil, and the people waiting for a better life to begin. It’s a heartfelt and unforgettable look back at one child’s life in the 1930s and ’40s, a story that will be remembered long after the last page is turned.
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"This book was a pure pleasure to read. I so want to give it five stars, but it just doesn't quite measure up to those all time favorites of mine that I have rated five. But The Crazyladies of Pearl Street is still a pure delight. Are there things one can criticize about this book? Sure, if you're so inclined . . . but from the first page this book will draw you in so thoroughly that you feel you are right there with the narrator, on Pearl Street during the Great Depression. Some have said i...more This book was a pure pleasure to read. I so want to give it five stars, but it just doesn't quite measure up to those all time favorites of mine that I have rated five. But The Crazyladies of Pearl Street is still a pure delight. Are there things one can criticize about this book? Sure, if you're so inclined . . . but from the first page this book will draw you in so thoroughly that you feel you are right there with the narrator, on Pearl Street during the Great Depression. Some have said it is a difficult read because it is not a very happy book and if you look simply at the events it is an extremely unhappy book -- being poor during the depression was an awful existence. But throughout this book the love that existed within this family is a comforting presence that makes the difficult events being retold tolerable. While this book is not a comedy by any standard, it is one of the few books that have actually made me laugh out loud at points. Yes, there was humor, too, during the depression. As someone else has mentioned, you may want to have a dictionary handy when you read this, as the author pulls out a fair number of words we of less-than-genius stature are not going to recognize. The amazing thing, though, is that Trevanian weaves those words in so expertly that the prose doesn't seem forced the way it often does with authors of lesser skill. The Crazyladies of Pearl Street is beautifully written and managed to creep into my heart very early on and not let go . . . and at the end I had tears in my eyes."
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Liesl (4 out of 5 stars)