Customer Reviews

Manhattan Memoir: American Girl; Manhattan, When I Was Young; Speaking with Strangers

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The late Mary Cantwell charmingly recounts, in this 3 books in one volume paperback, her years growing up in a small New England seaport town and her youthful foray into the 'glamourous' magazine world of New York City in the 'fities. Sane, sensible and warm nostalgia--without being saccharine. Beautifully written. A must for the literate and for New York lovers-- especially those who remember the days!

The other reviews told what the book was about. I just wanted to add to their comments by saying that I couldn't put the book down and was sad when it ended. Her words flowed so beautifully.

Mary Cantwell's Manhattan Memoir is three books in one but you will never tell the difference. The stories flow together as Cantwell's memoir's cover her life. Cantwell takes you through a stroll in Manhattan. The good times, the struggles. The best memoir I have read. This is that book you will tell all of your friends about. Cantwell is a fantastic story teller.

Mary Cantwell bares her triumphs and joys as well as her shortcomings and insecurities in this collection of three memoirs that span her childhood, early adulthood, and middle- to late-adulthood respectively. Cantwell lead a wonderful, if unremarkable, childhood in an enviably Rockwell-esque seaside town - her depiction of her life through high-school is a real joy to read. Upon graduation from college, Cantwell hits the "Big City" appears to have forgotten some of the lessons learned in her idyllic childhood, however, she still manages to snag a plumb job with Mademoiselle Magazine and occasionally interacts with literary legends with her ambitious young husband. In her later life she is given interesting writing assignments and carves out a life for herself in Lower Manhattan, however, I found it discouraging that she wallows in the collapse of her marriage (which never appeared to be very strong), often to the detriment of her two daughters. I kept wondering how a woman with such a strong background could have allowed herself to sink to the depths Cantwell periodically allowed herself to hit. Regardless, she is not ashamed to remember less-than-glamorous moments in her life (which also include being jeered by fellow classmates as an elementary school student and suffering from paralyzing fits of self-doubt as a young career woman) - these are the events that have made her what she is.

It must have been incredibly therapeutic for Cantwell to write these memoirs. All three books can be seen as a view of the author's life from within her own head. Her message is simple: accept me for what I am. "Manhattan Memoir," in addition to being the story of Mary Cantwell's life, it also about trying to be true to oneself when one isn't always sure what that means. By writing her story, Cantwell examines her life and tries to learn from her experiences - and it can make the reader start to think about his/her own life as well.

While Cantwell's life is not particularly fascinating or different in itself, her writing style and manner of portraying her experiences are magical and riveting. She describes the joyous and painful events of her life in an easy, engaging manner - it is as if she is talking about the past with old friends. She manages to make the mundane fascinating. She also has a real gift for engaging the reader. I wasn't sure if I liked her writing style at first - Cantwell writes almost as one speaks - but within pages of beginning the book I became used to her rambling style and truly enjoyed it.

This book provides an added plus for those from or familiar with Rhode Island and/or New York City. It was fun for me to recognize the addresses of Cantwell's Manhattan apartments and know that the places she frequented, I often go to today.

The late Mary Cantwell charmingly recounts, in this 3 books in one volume paperback, her years growing up in a small New England seaport town and her youthful foray into the 'glamourous' magazine world of New York City in the 'fities. Sane, sensible and warm nostalgia--without being saccharine. Beautifully written. A must for the literate and for New York lovers-- especially those who remember the days!

Cantwell should have stopped at American Girl. She is eloquent in her writing, but comes off as a self-centered whiner with too many contradictory feelings in the the second and third books. It was a pain to finish the triology. Stick to American Girl.

These three together are Cantwell's complete memoir. Previously in three single book form, you will want to read this book as one. Here is a beautiful masterpiece of writing. I was unfamiliar with her and feel so blessed to have Amazon lead me to her through my interest in other women writers and in particular British writers. This American-Irish writer is colorful, honest, poetic and raw. I fell in love with Mary Cantwell.

I had a very hard time making it through the first volume in this collection, American Girl, for Cantwell's overheated writing and frankly maddening romanticization of her family and small town (and hero worshipping of her father). I think that I am glad that I did - now in Speaking With Strangers I cannot put the book down, though I still want to shake Cantwell out of her worship of the past, passivity and paralysis. But I still can't put it down - a fascinating study of life in New York when jobs were plentiful, rent was cheap, and young people were up and coming (and journalists and magazine writers made enough to live on well). However, American Girl still reads, to me at least, as science fiction - how could anyone have seen nothing but warm fuzzy perfection all through childhood and not wanted to see the wider world more than stay at home as Daddy's Girl?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially the first two titles, American Girl and Manhattan When I Was Young. Cantwell's style is indeed "breathless" but that's because she crams so much into each page - she recreates her home town, Bristol Rhode Island,and it's inhabitants including her extended family, teachers, friends, the whole life of the town - you see what she sees, smell the sea air - you're there! And then she moves to Manhattan and does the same thing again. You meet her husband, B, her often idiosyncratic co-workers at Mademoiselle and other magazines. You see and feel and smell Greenwich Village in the 50s and 60s as she walks the streets, shops, and moves from one apartment to a nicer one reveling in her sophisticated New York life. You see how young women were condescended to then - & weren't even aware of it, in the business world, by their husbands, by the mostly male doctors of that era. And she details her inner life with admirable honesty and insight as she struggles with her over dependence on her husband, her desire for solitude, and her desire at the same time to escape into work and travel. To criticize her for being the way she is is to criticize the honesty of the writing which is one of the major strengths of the book. If there was any weakness in the book for me it was that I never got a strong sense of her two daughters as individuals - we see them mainly as a reflection of her ambivalence and guilt about being an inadequate (though loving) mother. I too felt sad when the book ended and when I later read that Cantwell had died I felt like I'd lost a friend.

It's a memoir about Cantwell being in her 20's and 30's in NYCity -- time period is 1950's and '60's. Very good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Her writing is really good.