FANS OF ANGELA'S ASHES, NELLA'S LAST WAR, TOO MANY MOTHERS * First chapter is at end of The Summer of Katya, which sold over 6K in its first 3 months in summer '07 * Famously reclusive, publicity-shy, best-selling author of The Eiger Sanction finally tells his own story * Devoid of self-pity, this is a funny, honest account of growing up dirt poor in a tough environment This exuberant, touching memoir opens on St Patrick's Day, 1936, with America in the throes of the Great Depression. The six-year-old author, accompanied by his younger sister Anne-Marie and their spirited but vulnerable mother, has just arrived on the porch of their new home in Albany, where his feckless, often absent father has promised a brave new life will begin. But the father never shows up, and the family are thrown back once again on their own resources. For the next 8 years, through the end of the Great Depression and into World War Two, they live in the heart of the Irish slum, surrounded by ward heelers, unemployment and grinding poverty, as well as the eccentric ?crazyladies' of the title. Told from the point of view of the author's younger self, with honesty, candour and a fascinating eye for period detail, Crazyladies offers a marvellous portrait of a child forced to grow up too fast. A funny, deeply moving memoir, which also paints a vivid portrait of a neighbourhood, a city and a whole nation of people waiting for a better life to come. ?A nostalgic, richly textured autobiography. Trevanian sweetly evokes an innocent if hardscrabble lost age.? Publishers Weekly Trevanian was an elusive figure, writing under at least five different pseudonyms in at least five different genres. He is probably best known for the spy thrillers The Eiger Sanction, The Loo Sanction and Shibumi and his suspenseful masterpiece The Summer of Katya. His obituary in the New York Times described him as ?the only writer of airport paperbacks to be compared to Zola, Ian Fleming, Poe and Chaucer.? ?Vivid and absorbing? Publishing News ?Literary time travel... America was made by people like this.? Washington Post ?An absolute delight... A book that readers of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes will savour? Huntington News
