Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir

Written by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

Narrated by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

In Girls of Tender Age, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith fully articulates with great humor and tenderness the wild jubilance of an extended French-Italian family struggling to survive in a post-World War II housing project in Hartford, Connecticut. Smith seamlessly combines a memoir whose intimacy matches that of Angela's Ashes with the tale of a community plagued by a malevolent predator that holds the emotional and cultural resonance of The Lovely Bones.

Smith's Hartford neighborhood is small-town America, where everyone’s door is unlocked and the school, church, library, drugstore, 5 & 10, grocery, and tavern are all within walking distance. Her family is peopled with memorable characters—her possibly psychic mother who's always on the verge of a nervous breakdown, her adoring father who makes sure she has something to eat in the morning beyond her usual gulp of Hershey’s syrup, her grandfather who teaches her to bash in the heads of the eels they catch on Long Island Sound, Uncle Guido who makes the annual bagna cauda, and the numerous aunts and cousins who parade through her life with love and food and endless stories of the old days. And then there’s her brother, Tyler.

Smith's household was “different.” Little Mary-Ann couldn't have friends over because her older brother, Tyler, an autistic before anyone knew what that meant, was unable to bear noise of any kind. To him, the sound of crying, laughing, phones ringing, or toilets flushing was “a cloud of barbed needles” flying into his face. Subject to such an assault, he would substitute that pain with another: he'd try to chew his arm off. Tyler was Mary-Ann's real-life Boo Radley, albeit one whose bookshelves sagged under the weight of the World War II books he collected and read obsessively.

Hanging over this rough-and-tumble American childhood is the sinister shadow of an approaching serial killer. The menacing Bob Malm lurks throughout this joyous and chaotic family portrait, and the havoc he unleashes when the paths of innocence and evil cross one early December evening in 1953 forever alters the landscape of Smith's childhood.

Girls of Tender Age is one of those books that will forever change its readers because of its beauty and power and remarkable wit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jan 11, 2006
• ISBN: 9780743554176

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith is the author of eight novels. She has lived all her life in Connecticut, except for two years when she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon.

Reviews for Girls of Tender Age

[fitrun77 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful writing and narration. I loved her brother and family

[bnbookgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is such a great memoir/true crime story. The author covers coming-of-age, autism, pedophilia, murder and social and legal issues of the 1950's. I was intrigued by the telling of the two stories and then when they merged in mid book. This is a story of the author's life pre-crime, during the crime, and post-crime. It is also a story of how the author comes to terms with this along with so many other issues from her life. This young child had so much to deal with for someone so young. I was drawn in from the first chapter and couldn't put I down until the end.

[indygo88 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a well-written story in a somewhat unique format -- part memoir, part true crime -- but it worked. The author tells of her years as a young girl growing up in Connecticut in the 1950's with a somewhat eccentric family, an autistic brother (who at the time was not identified as such), and a serial sexual predator/killer within their midst. She interweaves true crime facts with personal anecdotes very effectively into an easy-to-read, yet very interesting memoir. I very much enjoyed this one, and only regret that I listened to the abridged audio as opposed to the entire unabridged story, as I really wasn't ready for this one to end.

[bellettres · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful memoir that drew me in right from the first paragraph. Serious subjects (murder, rape, autism, death penalty) dealt with in a sensitive fashion. Despite some somber themes, Smith made me smile on more than one occasion. As a long-time resident of Connecticut, it was fun to read about places, people, and events that have been part of my life for more than forty-five years. Maybe a little long when it came to the police investigation/trial. Loved it!

[pdebolt_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mary Ann Tirone-Smith has done an excellent job of describing her childhood in the 1950s - her emotionally-estranged mother, her doting father and her older brother whose autism regulated how the family unit operated. The convergence of evil with innocence changed everything when a child predator killed her 11-year old friend, who was just one of the "girls of tender age" whom he assaulted. The author has offered an unblemished look at her life before and after the murder.

[bobbieharv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A memoir by a novelist. Very well done in the beginning - interweaving her story with that of the murderer of her firend, in a way that we don't know who this guy is. In the middle she became obsessed with every detail of the trial and execution, and the book lost its charm. But she's a really good writer.

[jewelryladypam · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had to read this book for the 'memoirs' month of our book club. I was looking forward to reading it only because of its Hartford, CT setting since I grew up in Wethersfield, a bordering suburb. Otherwise, I really didn't want to read this book whatsoever and certainly would never have picked it myself. (In fact, during many parts of this book, I kept asking myself why on earth we had chosen this particular memoir from all of our available choices. Just a very odd choice, or so I had thought.)Luckily, a friend kept urging me to ignore my preconceived notions. I am so glad that I was 'forced' to read it; it really moved me and I have now discovered a writer whom I will add to my list of favorites.At times, I did find the book too Hartford-rich in the details (perhaps a bit tedious to someone not connected to Hartford history) but I loved how Ms. Tirone put forth her story - a sometimes difficult story to fathom - with such entertainment value and insight.This book proved to be well worth the read once I got to the extremely well-put ending chapters.After finishing this book, I marvelled at her incredible story of self-discovery, her unrelenting spirit that prevailed despite such a negatively remarkable childhood, the never-ending love she realized for her brother and her quest to 'set the record straight' about Irene's death.I feel better for having read this book afterall, and I look forward to reading more of Ms. Tirone's works.

[byroade · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Tirone Smith's memoir of a Hartford childhood in the fifties is funny, familiar, and disturbing. The central event of the memoir is the murder of her classmate Irene in fifth grade which creates a two-year hole in her memory until she retraces the circumstances of the crime decades later. Full of local history and color, I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone familiar with the area. It's all here folks: the Charter Oak project she lived in until age 7, G. Fox, Ella Grasso, St. Timothy O'Toole's, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Courant, the Times, the Hog River, Mark Twain, Samuel Colt, Hartford Public High, C.G., the Aetna, Royal Typewriter, grinders, George Will, the whole deal. It's also a story of a family doing better in the world, bit by bit, and hanging together despite the severe handicap of her autistic brother Tyler whose demons control all their lives. The story of the murder is terrible and I skipped over much of the recounting of the court transcripts, but nothing in the book is gratuitous. I recommend this book to anyone and would make it required reading for anyone living in Hartford County. It's a fast read with a great deal of humor, so don't be put off by the tragic story at its center.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mary-Ann Tirone had a childhood friend murdered when they were in elementary school, and completely blocks the event out until she is an adult. This is her book memorializing her friend's life and death, and following the path of the killer. The parts involving the killer were rather detached and distracting, but the rest of the story was interesting.