In Girls of Tender Age, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith fully articulates with great humor and tenderness the wild jubilance of an extended French-Italian family struggling to survive in a post-World War II housing project in Hartford, Connecticut. Smith seamlessly combines a memoir whose intimacy matches that of Angela's Ashes with the tale of a community plagued by a malevolent predator that holds the emotional and cultural resonance of The Lovely Bones. Smith's Hartford neighborhood is small-town America, where everyone's door is unlocked and the school, church, library, drugstore, 5 &amp; 10, grocery, and tavern are all within walking distance. Her family is peopled with memorable characters -- her possibly psychic mother who's always on the verge of a nervous breakdown, her adoring father who makes sure she has something to eat in the morning beyond her usual gulp of Hershey's syrup, her grandfather who teaches her to bash in the heads of the eels they catch on Long Island Sound, Uncle Guido who makes the annual bagna cauda, and the numerous aunts and cousins who parade through her life with love and food and endless stories of the old days. And then there's her brother, Tyler. Smith's household was "different." Little Mary-Ann couldn't have friends over because her older brother, Tyler, an autistic before anyone knew what that meant, was unable to bear noise of any kind. To him, the sound of crying, laughing, phones ringing, or toilets flushing was "a cloud of barbed needles" flying into his face. Subject to such an assault, he would substitute that pain with another: he'd try to chew his arm off. Tyler was Mary-Ann's real-life Boo Radley, albeit one whose bookshelves sagged under the weight of the World War II books he collected and read obsessively. Hanging over this rough-and-tumble American childhood is the sinister shadow of an approaching serial killer. The menacing Bob Malm lurks throughout this joyous and chaotic family portrait, and the havoc he unleashes when the paths of innocence and evil cross one early December evening in 1953 forever alters the landscape of Smith's childhood. Girls of Tender Age is one of those books that will forever change its readers because of its beauty and power and remarkable wit.

Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Tirone Smith, Mary-Ann

Arts & Literature

Free Press

With beauty, power, and remarkable wit, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith interweaves a bittersweet portrait of growing up among the working stiffs of 1950s Hartford, Connecticut, with the chilling progress of a serial pedophile who threatens to shatter her small town's innocence. In Girls of Tender Age, Smith lovingly evokes the jubilance and chaos of life in her extended French-Italian family and the challenges of living with her brother Tyler, an autistic at a time before anyone knew what that meant. Hanging over Smith's rough-and-tumble youth is the shadow of the approaching killer who forever alters the landscape of her childhood.

In Girls of Tender Age, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith fully articulates with great humor and tenderness the wild jubilance of an extended French-Italian family struggling to survive in a post-World War II housing project in Hartford, Connecticut. Smith seamlessly combines a memoir whose intimacy matches that of Angela's Ashes with the tale of a community plagued by a malevolent predator that holds the emotional and cultural resonance of The Lovely Bones.Smith's Hartford neighborhood is small-town America, where everyone’s door is unlocked and the school, church, library, drugstore, 5 & 10, grocery, and tavern are all within walking distance. Her family is peopled with memorable characters—her possibly psychic mother who's always on the verge of a nervous breakdown, her adoring father who makes sure she has something to eat in the morning beyond her usual gulp of Hershey’s syrup, her grandfather who teaches her to bash in the heads of the eels they catch on Long Island Sound, Uncle Guido who makes the annual bagna cauda, and the numerous aunts and cousins who parade through her life with love and food and endless stories of the old days. And then there’s her brother, Tyler. Smith's household was “different.” Little Mary-Ann couldn't have friends over because her older brother, Tyler, an autistic before anyone knew what that meant, was unable to bear noise of any kind. To him, the sound of crying, laughing, phones ringing, or toilets flushing was “a cloud of barbed needles” flying into his face. Subject to such an assault, he would substitute that pain with another: he'd try to chew his arm off. Tyler was Mary-Ann's real-life Boo Radley, albeit one whose bookshelves sagged under the weight of the World War II books he collected and read obsessively. Hanging over this rough-and-tumble American childhood is the sinister shadow of an approaching serial killer. The menacing Bob Malm lurks throughout this joyous and chaotic family portrait, and the havoc he unleashes when the paths of innocence and evil cross one early December evening in 1953 forever alters the landscape of Smith's childhood. Girls of Tender Age is one of those books that will forever change its readers because of its beauty and power and remarkable wit.

Community & Culture

Simon & Schuster Audio

As such things are measured in Washington, Denise Burke has everything a woman of wit could want: two hip kids able to look after themselves; a marriage constructed to allow maximum mutual leeway with a husband smack in the center of Clinton's inner circle; and a high-profile lover, the most eligible bachelor on Capitol Hill. Plus, she's a bestselling author of several true crime books. When her lover urges Denise to look into an old murder in his district - and then just as urgently begs her to drop the whole thing, her stubborn streak kicks in. And when he dies in flagrante with a D.C. callgirl, her bullshit detector goes on red alert: the good congressman didn't have to pay for sex. But when death strikes even closer to home, Denise becomes a woman with a big-time problem. Someone is very serious about getting her to drop the old case. Serious enough to make her the target of the next hit.

CAHIERS D HISTOIRE DU XXE SIECLE DE GAULLE ET LE QUEBEC

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

PUB QUEBEC

A smart-mouthed, fast-paced tale of marriage, murder, and double-dealing in the best-selling tradition of Susan Isaacs, Olivia Goldsmith, and Diane Johnson. As such things are measured in Washington, Denise Burke has everything a woman of wit could want: two hip kids able to look after themselves; a marriage carefully constructed to allow maximum mutual leeway with a husband smack in the center of Clinton's inner circle; and a high-profile lover, the most eligible bachelor on Capitol Hill. Plus, she's a best-selling author of true-crime books. Not bad for a kid from the wrong side of the tracks whose mother never saw the wrong side of a bottle of booze. When her lover urges Denise to look into an old murder in his home district--and then just as urgently begs her to drop the whole thing--her stubborn streak kicks in. And when he dies in flagrante with a D.C. call girl, her bullshit detector goes on red alert: the good congressman didn't have to pay for sex. But it's when death strikes even closer to home that Denise becomes a woman with a big-time problem. Someone is serious about getting her to drop the old case. Serious enough to make her Numero Uno for the next hit. Combining the political savvy of Anonymous, the barbed wit of Sue Grafton, and the Lone Ranger instincts of Travis McGee, An American Killing is this year's big best-seller.

An American Killing

United States

Henry Holt and Co.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Tirone Smith, Mary-Ann. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Tirone Smith, Mary-Ann

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Tirone Smith, Mary-Ann. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir

Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir

Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir

CAHIERS D HISTOIRE DU XXE SIECLE DE GAULLE ET LE QUEBEC

An American Killing