Tara Clancy, the Clancys of Queens: A Memoir (New York: Crown Publishing Group), 2016

Tara Clancy is a funny woman and her memoir certainly kept me laughing. My life experience is so different from hers. I grew up in a small town in Montana, imagining what New York City might be like. She grew up in the midst of working-class New York, and moved about between her father's home, which was a converted boat shed, here grandmother's home, which was a multiple family house in Brooklyn, and a sprawling Hamptons estate she visited every other weekend, where her mother lived with an amazingly generous man. Each house had a different set of rules and a different style of living. The ever-adaptable Tara learned to balance these really different environments and fashion her own lifestyle in the midst of all of that.

The book is part coming-of-age, part telling of good stories, and part a rowdy and funny commentary on the behavior of adults in a large and complex family. The book is a gem and a genuine light on a life that I'll never live, but can really appreciate.