The Crazyladies of Pearl Street

The Crazyladies of Pearl Street Book Description

In a heartfelt and unforgettable look back at one child's life in the 1930s and '40s, six-year-old Jean-Luc LaPointe gradually takes on responsibility for his family's survival with a mix of bravery and resentment while his mom turns from spells of illness and depression to eager planning for the day when "our ship will come in."
"Nostalgic, richly textured. Sweetly evokes an innocent if hardscrabble lost age."
--Publishers Weekly
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.
"Literary time travel, meticulously remembered and set down. . . . This book is in some ways a key to our country; America was made by people like this." --Washington Post

TREVANIAN is the authorof Shibumi, The Eiger Sanction,
The Loo Sanction, The Main, The Summer of Katya, Incident at Twenty-Mile, and Hot Night in the City. Visit www.trevanian.com for the Crazyladies cybernotes, Trevanian's commentaries, items from the author's desk, and more.

Trevanian has contributed to The Crazyladies of Pearl Street as an author. Trevanian's books have been translated into more than fourteen languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. He lives in the French Basque mountains. His new novel, "The Crazyladies of Pearl Street," is now available in hardcover.
Look for these other Trevanian classics from Three Rivers Press: "Shibumi, The Eiger Sanction, The Loo Sanction," and "The Main.
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"From the Trade Paperback edition."

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