Sleeping Arrangements :: Essays Papers

Sleeping Arrangements The autobiography I read was Sleeping Arrangements, the childhood memoirs of Laura (Lily) Shaine Cunningham. I chose this person simply because I had never heard of her before. Everybody was doing a book on celebrities, and at first I wanted to do Audrey Hepburn. I love her films; I have even already read a biography on her. But many other people were doing their biographies on her, and I realized that if I could find a book by a person who has led a typical childhood I would be different. By finding a book by a person I had never heard of I thought that I would find a normal life, but this book showed me that there isn’t a normal or typical childhood for anyone. Lily, as she is referred to throughout the book, is not famous. Lily was born the daughter of Larry Moore, though she isn’t sure of the spelling, and Rosie Shaine. Until she was three Lily and Rosie wandered from relative to relative, sleeping under dining room tables or where ever there was room for them. Then they rented an apartment in the Jewish section of the Bronx. Lily made two friends there, Diana and Susan, and they had wild unsupervised fun roaming about the parks and abandoned buildings. When Lily was 6 her mother became very ill and her Uncle Gabe comes to live with them. A couple weeks later Rosie dies in the hospital and Lily’s other uncle, Len, comes to help Gabe. They move to a bigger apartment in the same building, and let Lily decorate it. The walls are painted orange and white stripes in two rooms; pink and white stripes for another room, and for the living room a gold lamà © convertible sofa. Eventually the â€Å"unkies† mother move s in too, and then their family is complete. Over the years Lily learns about love, life, and death, although not all of it is accurate. Lily has gone on to write many books, plays, and her most famous work, A Place In The Country. The part of this book that really interested me the most was the first one and a half chapters. â€Å"He’s fighting in the war.† (Pg 1) This is what Lily told people when they asked where her father was.