Corinne Demas
Description
Eleven Stories High is a memoir of a middle-class New York childhood, the perceptions of a girl growing up in a housing project that she deemed a "uto
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pia of the fifties." The story follows the process of memory, rather than the conventions of chronology, and explores the concept of "home," how a place like Stuyvesant Town--impersonal, symmetrical, utilitarian--shapes a childhood. This poignant memoir of life in Stuyvesant Town, a New York City housing project, describes growing up in what the author deems a "utopia of the fifties." Corinne Demas evokes in convincing detail the friendships, foibles, and fantasies of a girl's coming of age in a "vertical" neighborhood of pets, games, elevator rides, and family life. She follows the process of memory, rather than the conventions of chronology, to take us on a vivid journey of the 1950's and 60's America of Halloween costumes, roller skating, the new T.V. culture, high school dances, and music lessons. She lovingly tells of her father--an unconventional dentist--and her mother, both a traditional housewife and a high school biology teacher.
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