The Crazyladies of Pearl Street

The Crazyladies of Pearl Street begins with the LaPointe family, six-year-old Jean-Luc (Luke), three-year-old Anne-Marie, and their (horribly ill-equipped) mother moving from rural New York to the slums of Albany at the height of the Great Depression. Actually, they've been summoned by their ever-absent husband/father, whose abandonment proves final when he never appears at the apartment he's rented them.

Throughout the next eight years, neighbors, teachers, friends, and relations come and go, moving the story (autobiographical fiction, according to the author's end note, which perhaps make this is an exaggerated memoir) forward in fits and starts. The pages and pages detailing Luke's "story games" definitely contributed to the fits. I kept waiting for something to happen, but really the story just floated along, the events no larger or more exciting than the minutiae of daily life. Harumph.

In addition to the limited action, I didn't particularly care for most of the characters, Jean-Luc's mother, Ruby, least of all. (I'll stop for a moment to say that while her parenting skills were abhorrent, I think I was irritated more than anything by the way Luke referred to her/how she referred to herself. I thought I'd scream if I read one.more.time. about her "famous French-and-Indian temper" and her hackneyed patterns of speech.) In any event, the most sympathetic of the cast is Mr. Kane, the Jewish proprietor of the corner store where Luke buys penny candies and the whole block places calls on the in-store pay phone. I could have used a little more of him.

Spanning the Great Depression and World War II, and told from the perspective of a rapidly maturing child, Crazyladies of Pearl Street has great potential, but is ultimately a little flat. If it were an actual memoir, it might remind have the lingering sweet notes of, say, The Situation in Flushing (could I offer higher praise??), but as it's clearly stated to be a fictional account, I expected a bit more, well, action. (And by this I mean that if an author were to create a "memoir" whole cloth, Lovers at the Chameleon Club is the way to go.) The best I can say is that Luke reminded me often of Elizabeth Gaffney's Wally (When the World Was Young), similarly making her way in a complicated world.

Lee Smith says that all stories take one of two forms: either somebody takes a trip, or a stranger comes to town. With Crazyladies, Trevanian (and, yes, I think it's weird that he's styled himself as a one-name author, the only other one that comes to mind being Homer - but I digress) has proven this wisdom more times than I can count.