Half a Life: A Memoir
$17.00
201 in stock
Refresh Stock LevelInformation
Shipping
We currently offer free shipping on all orders over $100. Standard media mail shipping is $7.50 plus $1 for each additional book. Electronics are $35 shipping on all items.
Books
We get our books from a national distributor and although we strive to present up to date stock counts, stock constantly fluctuates. We perform a stock check when you add your book to the cart to ensure that it is available for shipping from the distributor. You can also check stock status by clicking the refresh stock link on the product page for the most up to date stock at the distributor. If an item is on backorder, you may place an order and we will update you on the estimated ship date as soon as we can confirm with the distributor.
Return & exchange
If you are not satisfied with your purchase you can return it to us within 14 days for an exchange or refund. More info.
Assistance
Can’t find what you’re looking for? We have access to over 13 million titles, reach out and see if we can help!
Contact us on (575) 322-6867, or email us at business@rabsbooks.com.
| Weight | 0.43 lbs |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 7.99 × 5.18 × 0.56 in |
Description
Unflinchingly honest, moving, and funny, Half a Life shows how a girl without means or promise and with only a loving mother, chutzpah, a bit of fraud, and a lot of luck turned into somebody. In 1964 the Ciment family left middle-class Montreal for the fringe desert communities of Los Angeles, where their always unstable father lost the last vestiges of his sanity. Terrified and broke, in a world he could neither understand nor control, he came apart. When the family finally threw him out, he lived for weeks in his car at the foot of their driveway.
Ciment turned herself into a girl for whom a father is unnecessary-a tough girl who survived any way she could. She and her brother Jack helped support the family by working for a shady market researcher, quickly learning to supply their own answers to burning questions like, “Did we like Swanson TV dinners? If so, why? On a scale of one to ten, how would we rate the new Talking Barbie? Arrow wax? Dr. Ross’s dog food?” She became a gang girl, a professional forger, and a Times Square porn model. Using a friend’s SAT score she cheated her way into art school, and seduced and eventually married her art teacher, a married man thirty years her senior. By turns comic, tragic, and heartrending, Half a Life is a bold, unsentimental portrait of the artist as a girl from nowhere, making herself up from scratch, acting up, and finally overcoming the consequences of being the child of a father incapable of love and responsibility.Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.