Laura Shaine Cunningham

Quite an unusual family. Laura (though her name is Lily in the book; I'd love to read her other books to see why she changed). Her mother died when she was only 8 years old. Her two bachelor uncles moved in with her (an eventually her dotty grandmother) and quite a different life for them all. It was funny how naive these men were in taking care of her and her Uncle Gabe had to call his sister to see how to give her a bath. Come on, she was 8. She should know! They had no furniture. Her Uncle Len, liked to live unencumbered.

A humorous read though sometimes sad. They lived together for 8 years and though it was unusual it seemed to work.… (meer)

A vivid account of how the author was cared for by her bachelor uncles after the death of her mother, set in the Bronx of the 1950s. I came across it in a letter from Jessica Mitford to the author (read in "Decca", edited by Peter Y. Sussman). It is well worth reading, which I did in a single sitting. There is a tension between the roles of a single parent (loving but the need to scrape a living makes her daughter fairly feral, with the dangers of the street not hard to find); the uncles (pretty inept domestically but showing total commitment to the nurture of their bereaved young niece); and the unsettling power of the Authorities.… (meer)

Oh gosh. I should've trusted my instinct and judged this book by the cover. Something about the art hinted at a high yuck factor (lots of child sexuality, including molestation and prostitution by a girl as young as 5). But the words all over the cover said stuff like 'comic, delightful, enchanting, funny.' One blurb says you'll want to 'send to your mother' a copy.

Um, no. I did get through it, as did Laura. But if it weren't for those amazing uncles, we may not have been able to do so. I wish she'd gotten to know them better so we could, too. But I cannot imagine sharing this with my mother. Or anyone I know.… (meer)