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Loading... Sleeping Arrangementsby Laura Shaine Cunningham
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A vivid account of how the author was cared for by her bachelor uncles after the death of her mother, set in the Bronx of the 1950s. I came across it in a letter from Jessica Mitford to the author (read in "Decca", edited by Peter Y. Sussman). It is well worth reading, which I did in a single sitting. There is a tension between the roles of a single parent (loving but the need to scrape a living makes her daughter fairly feral, with the dangers of the street not hard to find); the uncles (pretty inept domestically but showing total commitment to the nurture of their bereaved young niece); and the unsettling power of the Authorities. Oh gosh. I should've trusted my instinct and judged this book by the cover. Something about the art hinted at a high yuck factor (lots of child sexuality, including molestation and prostitution by a girl as young as 5). But the words all over the cover said stuff like 'comic, delightful, enchanting, funny.' One blurb says you'll want to 'send to your mother' a copy. Um, no. I did get through it, as did Laura. But if it weren't for those amazing uncles, we may not have been able to do so. I wish she'd gotten to know them better so we could, too. But I cannot imagine sharing this with my mother. Or anyone I know. no reviews | add a review
Very few books have the magic of Sleeping Arrangements - the memoir of Lily Shaine, an orphan brought up by her two eccentric bachelor uncles. Uncle Len is a 6 foot 6 inch private investigator, a trench-coated cross between Abraham Lincoln and Sam Spade. Uncle Gabe, the librarian, is a confirmed dreamer who writes gospel songs in his spare time. With her uncles as mentors, the human jungle of the Bronx in the 1950s as her playground, the schoolroom as her torture chamber, and very knowing little girls as her playmates, Lily learns the secrets of life, sex, death and, above all, family love. A wry, funny and deeply affectionate portrait of the most unlikely of happy families, Sleeping Arrangements is a modern classic. No library descriptions found. |
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A humorous read though sometimes sad. They lived together for 8 years and though it was unusual it seemed to work. ( )