A witty memoir that weaves an authentic coming-of-age tale into a bold portrait of New York’s working-class women. Fifth-generation New Yorker, third-generation bartender, and first-generation author Tara Clancy was raised in three wildly divergent homes: a converted boat shed in working class Queens, a geriatric commune of feisty, Brooklyn-born Italians, and a sprawling Hamptons estate she … Hamptons estate she visited every other weekend. This childhood triptych comes to life in The Clancys of Queens, an electric, one-of-a-kind memoir.
From scheming and gambling with her force-of-nature grandmother, to brawling with eleven-year-old girls on the concrete recess battle yard of MS 172, to hours lounging on Adirondack chairs beside an immaculate croquet lawn, to holding court beside Joey O’Dirt, Goiter Eddy, and Roger the Dodger at her Dad’s local bar, Tara leapfrogs across these varied spheres, delivering stories from each world with originality, grit, and outrageous humor.
But The Clancys of Queens is not merely an authentic coming-of-age tale or a rowdy barstool biography. Chock-full of characters who escape the popular imaginings of this city, it offers a bold portrait of real people, people whose stories are largely absent from our shelves. Most crucially, it captures—in inimitable prose—the rarely-heard voices of New York’s working-class women.
With a light touch but a hard hit, The Clancys of Queens blends savvy and wit to take us on an unforgettable strata-hopping adventure.
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A lovely memoir!
The Clancys of Queens: A Memoir is a fun and rollicking book filled with family laughter, scheming, and very funny humor. The Clancy’s are everything the reader will expect and also so many funny circumstances that will keep you turning the pages faster just to see what else is going to happen. Multi-generational and unforgettable characters with many adventures in store.
I enjoy reading about other peoples lives and what and who has effected them in their lives.
Fun read for anyone who grew up in NYC
I grew up in Queens so perhaps that’s why I enjoyed this book. The locations and people were familiar too. I guess the area hasn’t changed much since I left.
Not sure it is quite as good if you didn’t grow up in NYC
If Eloise had lived in Broad Channel instead of the Plaza Hotel, this could have been her story. Tara is a gifted writer and sees things through a lens I totally enjoyed peeking at.
I’ve got to admit my initial interest was because I grew up in a nearby section of Queens, NY. I could easily relate to the maps and geography of the place. Of course, it had changed since I was a boy there. I want to know more about the characters, particularly the main character. I think there is more to the story. There seem to be some holes in the timeline, like the ten years between the book and its publication.
I made myself finish this book waiting for something worth reading about to happen. The big moment all to build up to realizing she likes girls better than boys. No anguish, everybody still loves her, finally decides to read a book and go to go to college. She gets into a college, the book ends.
Tara Clancy is my new favorite bad ass. The Clancys of Queens is a hilarious love letter to my favorite city and to working class families everywhere.
Real people’s stories are more interesting than fiction because real American life is full of weird connections, from city to country, from Queens to Montana, from high-class to low-class, from straight world to underworld. Ms. Clancy’s rambunctious memoir is a buster of artificial barriers. She goes global, widening the mind. Her setting—the Byzantium of Queens—is the place to do it. I love this memoir for its brash heroine, her bracing voice, her love of her father, her unquiet soul, and the social history she gives of a violent, energetic, fast-evolving world—which is bigger than most people can imagine.
This memoir is blessed by a narrating voice of such vivid originality the reader cannot help but relish the life it details.
Tara Clancy’s freewheeling memoir is a refreshing look at New York City, one that crosses many bridges: the ones between boroughs and the ones between social classes. The Clancys of Queens is one woman’s story, but it also captures the vitality and sense of possibility of the city.
The fierce voices of working class women are too often inaudible in our top-down social economy, but when Tara Clancy breaks through, she dazzles us with authenticity, hilarity, and insight. The relentless honesty of her book will capture your heart.