Synopses & Reviews
From National Book Award nominee Anne Roiphe comes this moving memoir of growing up in a wealthy Jewish home with a family who had money, status, culture -- everything but happiness. andlt;BRandgt; While the nation was at war abroad, Roiphe, who was coming of age in 1940s New York City, saw her parents at war in their living room. Roiphe's evocative writing puts readers right in Apartment 8C, where a constant tension plays out between a disappointed and ineffectual mother, a philandering father who uses his wife's money to entertain other women, and a difficult brother. Behind the leisure culture of wealthy Jewish society -- the mahjongg games, the cocktail parties, the summer houses -- lurks a brutality that strikes a chord with a daughter who longs to heal the wounds of her troubled family. andlt;BRandgt; Writing with a novelist's sensibility, Roiphe reveals the poignant story of a family that has finally claimed its material wealth in a prosperous America but has yet to claim its spiritual due.
Review
Karen Lehrman andlt;Iandgt;The New York Times Book Reviewandlt;/Iandgt; Eloquent....Roiphe gives her memoir the dramatic vividness of a novel.
Review
Robert Taylor andlt;Iandgt;The Boston Globeandlt;/Iandgt; Probing....Roiphe's [book] is an acute social history as well as a personal account.
Review
Peter Gay author of andlt;Iandgt;The Bourgeois Experienceandlt;/Iandgt; A marvelous, fascinating book....A horror story and a love story at the same time.
About the Author
andlt;Bandgt;Anne Roipheandlt;/Bandgt; is the author of seven novels, including andlt;Iandgt;Up the Sandbox, Lovingkindness,andlt;/Iandgt; and andlt;Iandgt;Fruitful; Living the Contradictions -- A Memoir of Modern Motherhood,andlt;/Iandgt; which was nominated for the National Book Award. She lives in New York City.