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Jan. 10, 2006
BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Crazyladies of Pearl Street’ Vividly, Humorously Portrays
Poverty-Stricken Coming of Age During Depression, WWII
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic
Hinton, WV (HNN) – I’ve got good news and bad news for fans of the
best-selling, genre-defying author known as Trevanian.
First the good news: his new (published last June, but I’ve just gotten
around to reading and reviewing it) semi-autobiographical novel/memoir “The
Crazyladies of Pearl Street” (Crown, 384 pages, $24.95) is an absolute
delight, especially for those of us old enough to remember the golden age of
network radio, manual-shift cars with pontoon-like fenders and the grim
nature of surviving during the Great Depression and growing towards puberty
during World War II.
At 67 – seven years younger than Trevanian – I qualify, but barely. The
urban poverty in the Irish slums of Albany, NY so vividly portrayed in
“Crazyladies,” is a far cry from my childhood on a southwestern Michigan
farm, where we never went hungry, even though flower-printed feed sacks –
remember them? – often were turned into shirts and other garments. I ate so
many eggs and chicken that to this day I can’t stand either fowl product.
Later on, moving to a small town in Illinois after my parents divorced
before my 11th birthday I remember the poverty – and the joys – of growing
up in a relatively safe time for kids. I also remember the fear of polio in
that pre-Salk vaccine era.
Now the bad news: Trevanian – born Rodney William Whitaker in upstate New
York in 1931, died Dec. 14, 2005 in the West Country of England at the age
of 74 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He’s most famous for his
debut 1972 blockbuster novel “The Eiger Sanction,” which was turned into a
1975 Clint Eastwood movie. He also wrote – among many other books --
“Shibumi,” “Hot Night in the City,” and was a teacher of literature and film
at various universities, including the University of Texas at Austin. His
books enabled him to buy a house in the Basque Country of southwestern
France where he and his wife lived for 40 years.
He probably inherited his weak lungs from his mother and his father, both of
whom are portrayed in “Crazyladies” as suffering from lung-related ailments
like pneumonia and emphysema.
“Crazyladies tells how six-year-old Jean-Luc LaPointe, his mother Ruby and
his three-year-old sister Anne-Marie are lured to a rundown apartment in the
Pearl Street slums of Albany in 1936. Ruby’s estranged con-man husband Ray
has promised to reform and is coming with a St. Patrick’s Day cake. It’s
like waiting for Godot: He never shows up and the first “crazylady” in young
Jean-Luc’s life – his mom – has to go on welfare to support the two kids.
She’s an eccentric, mangling clichés like “living off the fat of the land”
to “living off the flat of the land”, and “It will be a hot day in hell…”
and often displaying her “French and Indian” temper – she’s part Indian on
her father’s side. Ruby LaPointe, slim, stylish and attractive, stands out
amidst the lumpy Irish women of Pearl Street – and is resented for it. The
name LaPointe is a Trevanian favorite: He uses it for a Montreal cop in his
crime novel “The Main.”
Another “crazylady” in Jean-Luc’s life is his teacher Miss Cox, who
encourages him in his reading and studying. The book covers the period
1936-1945, encompassing the Depression and the build-up to World War II and
the war period. At the end of the novel, we’re taken up to the present time
in a quick fast-forward.
Jean-Luc quickly makes friends with a Jewish grocer named Mr. Kane, who
isn’t much more affluent than his customers, but suffers in good grace the
casual anti-Semitism so common among Irish Catholics – to name just a few
ethnic groups. One of the more unattractive sides of Ruby is her
anti-Semitism. Mr. Kane was once the proud owner of a bookstore in New York
City. He now is yelled at by his wife, another of the “crazyladies,” who
combines her beauty shop work with fortune telling.
Ruby is a part-time waitress and manages to support her two children with
federal surplus food and handling the coal-burning boiler of her tenement.
The welfare allotment is a meager $7.27 a week for three people, and she
gets $20 a month from welfare towards the $25 rent – which includes heat.
This alone makes me envious as I look at my sky-high monthly heating bill!
Among the other “crazyladies” are Mrs. Meehan, the matriarch of a brood of
wild Irish men, women and children. She has a peculiar habit of not being
able to let go of objects – which lands her in trouble from time to time.
One member of the varying-sized Meehan brood is teen-aged Brigid Meehan, who
provides Jean-Luc with a lasting sexual experience – no, not all the way,
but lasting nonetheless. Sometimes the most enduring sexual memories are
just short of coitus.
Another “crazylady” is Mrs. McGivney, whose Spanish-American War veteran
husband is in a catatonic state in his rocking chair. He wasn’t even in
combat; he developed a fever that impaired his brain. She gives Jean-Luc
pocket change to pick up her groceries at Mr. Kane’s place and insists that
he consume her homemade sugar cookies, not his favorite. Like me, he’s an
oatmeal cookie kind of guy.
After waiting the requisite seven years, Ruby LaPointe files for divorce
from Ray and becomes engaged to slightly younger cowboy hat and boot-wearing
Ben, who works on the docks and rents the cheapest room in the tenement, the
one closest to the attic that’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
When Pearl Harbor is attacked, Ben joins the Army and arranges to send his
allotment check to Ruby’s bank – the first bank account she’s ever had.
Ben’s skill with electronics serves him well in the signal corps, but he has
a flaw, like everybody. Read the book to find out what it is. You’ll also
get a kick out of Ruby’s reaction to Jean-Luc’s Christmas 1941 gift.
Like a lot of kids during the Golden Age of radio – including me – Jean-Luc
is entranced with the magical medium, a veritable theatre of the mind,
unlike the obviousness of TV. I believe radio is to TV as black and white
photography is to color photography. It’s a whole ‘nother medium. I started
out in photography as a kid in Illinois and still develop and print my own
black and white pictures the old fashioned way.
I’m just old enough to remember “The Lone Ranger,” broadcast out of Detroit
from WXYZ and reaching our farm 150 miles to the west with no problem across
the flatlands of Michigan. We also received stations from Chicago directly
across Lake Michigan. I was also a fan of “Grand Central Station,” “The
Shadow,” “The Whistler,” First Nighter,” “I Love a Mystery” and “Fibber
McGee and Molly” of 79 Wistful Vista, to name just a few.. The voices of
radio actors still resonate in my mind 60 years later. Remember William
Conrad as the radio Marshal Dillon of “Gunsmoke”?
Throughout the book, the author includes footnote numbers, keyed to his web
site, www.trevanian.com. He calls them “cybernotes” and they help the
modern-day reader understand the period, not so long ago, but it seems like
a distant universe!
This is a book that readers of Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” will savor.
It will appeal to many in my pre-Boomer generation, but younger people will
enjoy it, too. Above all, Trevanian will be remembered as a master
storyteller. He’s appreciated by admiring writers and readers alike.
Publisher’s web site: www.crownpublishing.com
