Girls of Tender Age

A Memoir

By: Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

Narrated by: Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

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.©2006 Mary-Ann Tirone Smith; (P)2006 Simon & Schuster, Inc. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A masterful fiction writer tells her own story: one little girl dies, the other comes of age and gives voice to herself and her murdered friend. Riveting, heartbreaking, hilarious, I loved this book for its compassion, its vividness, and its flashes of justifiable anger. A life-affirming read."

-- Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True

Book superb, Audible app - not working for me

This is one of the most compelling books I've "read" in a long time. It pulls at you directly from the heart of all young - or once young - girls.

Unfortunately my Audible app is less than operative. I have a late model car, and an uptodate IOS device. Audible was my choice for drive/listening. It doesn't sync with my Bluetooth, and the book doesn't sync when picked up in intervals.

Technical support was lacking.

Get the book - try another app for auto drive

I changed my mind

I gave the book another chance and you should too.
I found it more enjoyable than a ever thought. If you enjoy justice please give it a listen.

Subtly moving, quietly humorous and wonderful.

I first listened to this book a few years ago, and it stayed with me , coming back to me whenever I saw or read or listened to a piece with similar themes. I just finished (the loving and hilarious and highly recommended) Tara Clancy's The Clancy's of Queens, and ran right back to Mary-Ann for another listen.

I just love Audible. Such wonders, sitting right on my phone, available to me instantly! Life is good!

An interesting read

If you could sum up Girls of Tender Age in three words, what would they be?

I don't think I can.

What did you like best about this story?

I like that it's true. And although it was about a murder, there were many other layers.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith?

Maybe.