num_pages: 224
description: An autobiographical account of a female writer in the 1950s. Fresh out of college, Cantwell arrived in Greenwich Village and shared an apartment with a friend. Despite all the flair of metropolitan life, experiences with high-style department stores, exclusive little shops, theaters, parties, restaurant outings, and even a romance and marriage, she became increasingly depressed. Her close ties to a lovingly encouraging father were broken by his early death. She details the passage of years by describing the flats, houses, and apartments she lived in and the jobs lost and gained in her career pursuit, including at a fashion magazine. Despite Cantwell's lifelong involvement with psychoanalysis, her account is enlivened with the glamour of little black dresses, Steuben glassware, ethnic neighborhoods, and the whole ambiance of the city, presenting anew the eternal charm of the Big Apple for the young -- and especially in that 1950s world Cantwell inhabits, that of magazine and book publishing and fashion and the middle-class bohemia of downtown New York at a golden moment in time.
language: English
title: Manhattan, When I Was Young
titlecomplete: Manhattan, When I Was Young
genres: Classics, New York, Autobiography, Fashion, Biography Memoir, Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction, Mental Illness, Womens
ratings_count: 700
places: Greenwich Village, New York City, New York, Manhattan, New York City, New York
publisher: Penguin Books