"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."

A wishlist book I got through PaperBackSwap.com. (Abridged on 5 CD's; read by the author)

This was a well-written story in a somewhat unique format -- part memoir, part true crime -- but it worked. The author tells of her years as a young girl growing up in Connecticut in the 1950's with a somewhat eccentric family, an autistic brother (who at the time was not identified as such), and a serial sexual predator/killer within their midst. She interweaves true crime facts with personal anecdotes very effectively into an easy-to-read, yet very interesting memoir. I very much enjoyed this one, and only regret that I listened to the abridged audio as opposed to the entire unabridged story, as I really wasn't ready for this one to end.

Going into BigJohnLefty's audio box....

This book has made a short stop at my house. It will continue on its journey until it finds its new home.

Chosen from Big John Lefty's audiobookbox.

I really enjoyed this book. It takes us back to a time in America when life was so different. I grew up a few years after the time this book takes place but so much of what the author talks about, especially the references to the Catholic church brought back memories. It was a simpler time when children could play outside, walk to the store, be home when the streert lights come on, etc.
The other part that I remember is the way sexual assault was handled back then. It was often blamed on the female...too pretty, dressed too provocatively, etc.

Passing on to Aberpeter while she is visiting.

thank you dabercro

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith's memoir about growing up in Hartford, CT with an autistic brother and a serial killer lurking in the shadows. When a classmate is killed one evening when on an errand for her mother, Smith's life will forever be impacted.

sending to imawinn2

I picked this one out of booklady331's audiobook VBB. Thanks so much for sharing and sending this story my way.