From the acclaimed novelist, playwright, and journalist Laura Cunningham, a coming of age story and enchanting memoir of childhood

"Here is Lily Moore at 10, as judged by her fifth grade teacher: 'Unsatisfactory...Hair matted, uncombed, disheveled appearance. Soil under nails.' She has in addition been AWOL from school for 37 full and 38 half days...She lives in a bizarre apartment whose living room furnishings consist of a gold lame castro convertible and two pink bath mats--her choice. She shares the habitation with a senile old woman and two bachelors, one of whom habitually cooks popcorn for breakfast wearing a pith helmet...All indications to the contrary notwithstanding. Lily is living a blessed life, as depicted in Laura Cunningham's unromantic, spare, funny, enchanting memoir." --The Washington Post

"A wonderfully vivid chronicle of a young girl's coming of age...funny and sad, irreverent and generous...A model memoir." --Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Sharp-witted and funny but never mean. A lovely novelistic memoir." --Julie Salamon, The Wall Street Journal

"Original, quirky, poignant, and hilarious." --Los Angeles Times

"A winner...life-affirming." --San Francisco Chronicle