1185 Park Avenue - by Anne Roiphe (Paperback)

About the Book

This captivating account of the author's coming-of-age in 1940s New York City relates Roiphe's experiences growing up in a wealthy Jewish home with a family who had money, status, and culture--everything but happiness. It's also a chronicle of an era in American history.

Book Synopsis

From National Book Award nominee Anne Roiphe comes this moving memoir of growing up in a wealthy Jewish home with a family who had money, status, culture -- everything but happiness.
While the nation was at war abroad, Roiphe, who was coming of age in 1940s New York City, saw her parents at war in their living room. Roiphe's evocative writing puts readers right in Apartment 8C, where a constant tension plays out between a disappointed and ineffectual mother, a philandering father who uses his wife's money to entertain other women, and a difficult brother. Behind the leisure culture of wealthy Jewish society -- the mahjongg games, the cocktail parties, the summer houses -- lurks a brutality that strikes a chord with a daughter who longs to heal the wounds of her troubled family.
Writing with a novelist's sensibility, Roiphe reveals the poignant story of a family that has finally claimed its material wealth in a prosperous America but has yet to claim its spiritual due.

From the Back Cover

From National Book Award nominee Anne Roiphe comes this moving memoir of growing up in a wealthy Jewish home with a family who had money, status, culture -- everything but happiness.

While the nation was at war abroad, Roiphe, who was coming of age in 1940s New York City, saw her parents at war in their living room. Roiphe's evocative writing puts readers right in Apartment 8C, where a constant tension plays out between a disappointed and ineffectual mother, a philandering father who uses his wife's money to entertain other women, and a difficult brother. Behind the leisure culture of wealthy Jewish society -- the mahjongg games, the cocktail parties, the summer houses -- lurks a brutality that strikes a chord with a daughter who longs to heal the wounds of her troubled family.

Writing with a novelist's sensibility, Roiphe reveals the poignant story of a family that has finally claimed its material wealth in a prosperous America but has yet to claim its spiritual due.

Review Quotes

Karen Lehrman The New York Times Book Review Eloquent....Roiphe gives her memoir the dramatic vividness of a novel.

Peter Gay author of The Bourgeois Experience A marvelous, fascinating book....A horror story and a love story at the same time.

Robert Taylor The Boston Globe Probing....Roiphe's [book] is an acute social history as well as a personal account.

About the Author

Anne Roiphe is the author of seven novels, including Up the Sandbox, Lovingkindness, and Fruitful; Living the Contradictions -- A Memoir of Modern Motherhood, which was nominated for the National Book Award. She lives in New York City.