“An unflinching evocation of a Catholic girlhood. In short chapters that touch on nodes of great feeling, she summons up both torment and tenderness. The reader is ushered into a world which reaches from the rooms of her Irish immigrant house in the Bronx to the mysteries of religious feeling. The narrator is beautifully alive to the endless hazards, complications and indignities of growing up. So much of the wisdom of childhood lies in the strange blend of endurance and enchantment. Joan Handler has a sure feeling for both.”—Baron Wormser

“We are engrossed by the often painful story of a child trapped in an obedience-based working class Catholic family, a demanding and usually unforgiving Church, and an environment seeming devoid of gentleness and pleasure. Unforgettable.”—Mickey Pearlman