The Crazyladies of Pearl Street: A Novel (Paperback)

by Trevanian (Author) "My sister, my mother and I sat in a row on the front stoop of 238 North Pearl Street, feeling overwhelmed and diminished by teh..." (more)
Key Phrases: riffle books, green cake, green soda, Pearl Street, Miss Cox, Father Looney (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this nostalgic, richly textured autobiographical novel about growing up on a poor Irish block in Albany, N.Y., prolific author Trevanian (Shibumi; Hot Night in the City; etc.) recalls his childhood during the Great Depression through World War II. In 1936, six-year-old narrator Jean-Luc La Pointe, his mother and younger sister leave Lake George Village for a gritty tenement in Albany to reunite with their deadbeat father and husband. He never shows up, and the penniless family makes do on their own: Luke's mother finds work as a waitress, and he fetches day-old bread on credit from the Socialist Jewish grocer across the street while steering clear of the Meehans from down the block, "a wild, drunken, dim-witted tribe... related in complex and unnatural ways." Affectionate portraits of the titular eccentric women punctuate Trevanian's sprawling tale: Luke observes the beleaguered and self-destructive Mrs. Meehan and meets the reclusive Mrs. McGivney, who perpetually relives a happier past while caring for a catatonic husband. Luke's "defiantly independent" mother, another "crazylady," marries the decent upstairs neighbor, but continues to idealize her con-man first husband. Though Trevanian's reminiscences make for a more atmospheric than carefully wrought novel, he sweetly evokes an innocent if hardscrabble lost age. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
In 1936, in the Depression-era U.S., six-year-old Jean-Luc LaPointe; his three-year-old sister, Anne-Marie; and his mother, Ruby, are given a nugget of hope. The father and husband who abandoned them twice over has written claiming that after a stint in the slammer he's straightened out his life and wants them to come live with him. So Ruby packs up her children and heads to Albany, New York, to the shoddy, rundown apartment that's waiting for them on Pearl Street. Jean-Luc's father, however, is nowhere to be found, and Ruby is forced to go on welfare to support herself and her children. At school, Jean-Luc comes under the tutelage of a kindly teacher, who nurtures his potential and encourages him. It isn't long before the growing threat in Germany and the approach of World War II cast a shadow on Pearl Street, especially when Ben, the man with whom Ruby has found love, enlists in the army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Trevanian's gift is his eye for detail; readers looking to get a feel for the period will find much to enjoy here. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (June 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400080371
• ISBN-13: 978-1400080373
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #112,231 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fulfilling novel from Trevanian, July 20, 2005

By	A reader (Eurasia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Crazyladies of Pearl Street: A Novel (Hardcover)

When picking up the latest by Trevanian, a reader must bear in mind that Trevanian is a versatile author and that his latest may resemble nothing he has written before. Yet he is one of those rare authors who succeeds, no matter what genre he tries. If you read The Crazyladies of Pearl Street expecting a spy novel like Shibumi, you will be disappointed. If you are a curious reader, expecting to be stimulated and entertained, and to appreciate a good prose, then you will find what you are looking for here.

The Crazyladies of Pearl Street is an autobiographical book (sort of), which is narrated by the young Jean-Luke. The story beings with Jean-Luke, his mother and his sister Anne-Marie arriving at Pearl Street, basically a slum. His health-wise fragile, mood-wise fickle mother has received a mail from her husband asking them to join him in Albany. But we never meet the man. We learn that he is a conman, appearing for brief periods of time, enough to charm the mother and get her pregnant, then disappearing, never to be heard from again for many years. So begins the life of this small family on Pearl Street. It is actually the story of an impoverished family on welfare, hardly affording anything, feeding on what the government can spare them. But for a story of such destituteness, it is not a depressing one. Quite the contrary it is filled with nostalgia for a whole different time, when radio and going to the movies supplied the sole entertainment, when America learned to grow up with World War II, when even the soon to be criminal boys of ghetto did not swear. It is a real story that takes you to the 30s and 40s America. Yet I think the trick here isn't that those were the good old days, but that these are the childhood memories of our author. Like every other childhood memory, this one has a longing you can associate with, even though you have never listened to a radio show that did not include pop music in your life. I can only imagine that such childhood memoirs can be very boring as the subject of a novel, but this one's written by Trevanian and not even for one sentence does it lag. From the first page to the last, it is captivating. I love it when a novel can transport me to a time and place I have never been, and does it so successfully that I do not feel like a stranger for one minute, and Crazyladies of Pearl Street does just that.

For Trevanian fans, this novel is double fulfilling because it gives you an insight into the mind of this mysterious author. I thoroughly enjoyed reading his takes on radio versus television, IQ tests, religion, contemporary American politics... Some of which are in his cybernotes, not in the novel.

Highly recommended to Trevanian fans and non-fans alike.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite language and depictive strength , July 20, 2005

By	Vasileios Masselos (Psychiko, Athens Greece) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Crazyladies of Pearl Street: A Novel (Hardcover)

What I love about Trevanian is that it's impossible to label him an any way. Like John le Carre he evolves, he matures and his language and prose reach the level of a true master. Trevanian understands the Japanese concept of "the way" (the "do" of ju"do", ken"do", aiki"do" etc) and constantly improves his superb writing skills. If he were is Japan I am sure he'd be named a living national treasure by now. The Crazyladies of Pearl street is evidently autobiographical and written by a man whose age blurs recent events but sheds new light and sharpens what happened more than seventy years ago. If someone is looking for a story, suspense or drama (as in the Sanctions, the Incident at 20 mile, Shibumi) would be (wrongly) disappointed because Crazyladies is more of a painting than a book. A painting so vivid and so artfully done that the reader is transported seventy years ago and lives every moment. It is also a strong distillate of knowledge and wisdom by one of the most formidable authors alive today. Contrary to e.g. Shibumi, Crazyladies is not a book written for the average reader. However, it would be an immense source or pleasure for its intended audiance. Let us hope that we'll get some more from Trevanian.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful american novel, January 5, 2006

By	Thomas Pullen "thomas_matthew" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Crazyladies of Pearl Street: A Novel (Hardcover)

this is sort of more a collection of short stories than a proper novel. there isn't much of a formal plot, issue development, and resolution type of thing going on.

what you have is maybe a couple hundred well-rendered vignettes, set in 1930's Albany NY amidst the hardships of the Depression Era,some of which are made quite moving by the realization of how deeply he loved life, and other people. It's a very compassionate novel, in my opinion.

trevanian had the rare (and sought-after) gift of being able to quickly put an idea, that most of us are still forming in the unconscious, into a sentence of a few carefully-chosen words.
every few dozen pages you might exclaim "that's exactly what i was thinking" or "yes, that's very true" or "that's very well-said."

I say "had" because unfortunately Trevanian (pen name of Dr. Rodney William Whitaker)passed away recently, Dec 14 of 2005).
This is his last novel.

i find him, in crazyladies of pearl street, to be reminiscing a childhood in amazingly minute detail. that's what this is. don't expect some complicated novel that resolves some gigantic issue, this is just a fragmented (how do you remember your own early childhood if not in separate snapshots?) series of stories: well-crafted, tender, compassionate, quite human, very American, uniquely Trevanian.