The Crazyladies of Pearl Street, Trevanian
The Crazyladies of Pearl Street, Trevanian
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The Crazyladies of Pearl Street

Author: Trevanian

Narrator: Tom Bosely

Abridged: 5 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/07/2005


Synopsis

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.

About The Author

Trevanian lives in the French Basque region. He is the author of Shibumi, The Eiger Sanction, The Loo Sanction, The Main, The Summer of Katya, Incident at Twenty-Mile, and Hot Night in the City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Marcie on June 27, 2009

After reading other reviews of this book on this website, I feel that I must defend it. First of all, no one should read this book UNLESS they are a Trevanian fan. To not know him first as the author of "Shibumi," the greatest spy novel ever written, or to not know of his fights with publishers and r......more

Goodreads review by Ayse_ on August 15, 2017

This book is an autobiographical novel about Trevanian's (Rodney William Whitaker (June 12, 1931 – Dec 14, 2005)) childhood (mostly) and also adulthood. His father was a con-man who never took care of his family. He tricked his family and disowned Trevanian and his sister at a very young age. Their......more

Goodreads review by Therese on July 13, 2023

An enjoyable read of the author’s experiences growing up in poverty on Pearl St. in Albany, NY in the 1930’s/40’s. My parents were married in the ‘40’s, and some of that era’s things that he weaves into the story, like games, songs, dances, the corner store, the neighborhood gossips, the crazy lady......more

Goodreads review by Jim on May 18, 2009

I return often to a well-worn theory that says "the world is made of two types of people..." and then you complete the dichotomy with "people who like X, and people who don't." It most commonly comes to mind when thinking about Japan, but now I think about Trevanian in the same way. I simply can't i......more

Goodreads review by Mary Ann on December 19, 2023

This was a delight. I first read The Eiger Sanction forty years ago when I picked up a copy at a library sale, and I was hooked. I've read all of Trevanian's work, and Shibumi is my favorite. Crazy Ladies is very different; I understand it is at least semi-autobiographical, published in 2005 when Ro......more


Quotes

“Nostalgic, richly textured. Sweetly evokes an innocent if hardscrabble lost age.” —Publishers Weekly

“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