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Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir [Paperback]

Paula McLain (Author)
2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)


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Book Description

May 5, 2004
The first book by the author of the New York Times bestseller The Paris Wife is a powerful and haunting memoir of the years she and her two sisters spent as foster children. In the early 70s, after being abandoned by both parents, the girls were made wards of the Fresno County, California court and spent the next 14 years-in a series of adoptive homes. The dislocations, confusions, and odd pleasures of an unrooted life form the basis of one of the most compelling memoirs in recent years--a book the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's Boys of My Youth and Mary Karr'sThe Liar's Club.

McLain's beautiful writing and limber voice capture the intense loneliness, sadness, and determination of a young girl both on her own and responsible, with her siblings, for staying together as a family.
--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.


Editorial Reviews

Review

"What makes LIKE FAMILY so remarkable are not the peculiar circumstances of Paula McLain's childhood but the depth of understanding that she brings to those circumstances, and the beautiful prose in which she renders that understanding. Seldom have I seen so vividly evoked the need to belong to some, any, kind of family and the painful negotiations that time brings to even our closest intimacies." (Library Journal Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture )

"Ms. McLain's close observation of the sisters' perils jumps with life and wry merriment. They take their pleasures and their sorrows as they arrive; even their times of desolation are narrated in language that conveys a kind of ragged glory-the tattered flag of their kinship still waves!" (Paula Fox, author of Borrowed Finery )

About the Author

After leaving California in 1987, Paula McLain spent the next decade in personal and professional vagabondage. She has worked in auto plants and hospitals and has been a cocktail waitress, a Christmas tree salesperson, a pizza maker, and an English teacher. In 1996, she received her MFA from the University of Michigan. Since then she has been in residence at Bread Loaf, Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony. At work on a novel, she lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Back Bay Books (May 5, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0316909092
  • ISBN-13: 978-0316909099
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

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Average Customer Review
2.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Not that captivating, July 14, 2011
By 
d epler (albuquerque, nm United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir (Paperback)
Memoir is a hard genre to write, and this one does not capture my interest as a reader. Perhaps the writer did not have enough distance from the events, or the writer just couldn't say the hard things that needed to be said because of a fear of hurting family members still alive? The memoir just falls flat.
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