Kitchen Privileges, Mary Higgins Clark
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Kitchen Privileges
Memoirs of a Bronx Girlhood

Unabridged: 5 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/01/2002

Synopsis

Even as a young girl, growing up in the Bronx, Mary Higgins Clark knew she wanted to be a writer, The gift of storytelling was a part of her Irish ancestry, so it followed naturally that she would later use her sharp eye, keen intelligence, and inquisitive nature to create stories. Along with all Americans, citizens of the Bronx suffered during the Depression. So when Mary's father died, her mother opened the family home to boarders and placed a discreet sign next to the front door that read, "Furnished Rooms. Kitchen Privileges." The family's struggle to make ends meet; her days as a scholarship student in an exclusive girls academy; the death of her beloved older brother in World War II; her marriage to Warren Clark; writing stories at the kitchen table; finally selling the first one for one hundred dollars, after six years and forty rejections -- all these experiences figure into Kitchen Privileges. Her husband's untimely death left her a widowed mother of five young children. Determined to care for her family an& to make a career for herself, she wrote scripts for a radio show. In her spare time she began writing novels. Where Are The Children? became an international bestseller and launched her career. When asked if she might consider giving up writing for a life of leisure, Marv has replied, "Never. To be happy for a year, win the lottery. To be happy for life, do what you love."

Author Bio

Suspense author, Mary Higgins Clark has had 51 novels that have been bestsellers in the United States and many other countries, all of which remain in print through 2015. It was through necessity that her career blossomed, but she had always had writing talent and aspirations.

Clark followed a dream in her early career and took time out to be a(at that time) stewardess for PanAm so she could see the world. Just before beginning her exciting new job.....being paid $5 less per week than her secretarial job.......she met William Clark who was so smitten with her that he proposed that she stay in the job for one year, then marry him at the end of that year. And they did just that. The Clarks had five children, and sadly her husband passed away from an extended bout of heart problems in 1964. Also, very sadly, his mother was at his bedside when he died, and she too passed away that very same night.

So, as stated before, out of necessity, Higgins Clark seriously launched her career of writing 51suspense novels with some being adapted to film. She is known as the "Queen of Suspense", she has the ability to serve as a master plotter to slowly create tension for the reader, while giving the appearance that everyone is guilty. Her books feature strong, independent women characters who are the heroines, who are noted for making sensible decisions. Readers tend to identify with these characters as more ordinary people than most novel heroines. Higgins Carter's novels are for adult readers, but because she does not include explicit sex or violence in them, they are also popular with children as young as twelve. Simon & Schuster have published all of Higgins Clark's novels, signed her to a $64 million , four book contract in 1990, and have funded the Mary Higgins Clark Award given to new authors of suspense novels.

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