Description: "It was probably because I was so often taken away from Cambridge when I was young that I loved it as much as I did ... " So begins this novel-from-life by the bestselling author of Girl, Interrupted, an exploration of memory and nostalgia set in the 1950s among the academics and artists of Cambridge, Massachusetts. London, Florence, Athens: Susanna, the precocious narrator of Cambridge, would rather be home than in any of these places. Uprooted from the streets around Harvard Square, she feels lost and excluded in all the locations to which her father's career takes the family. She comes home with relief--but soon enough wonders if outsiderness may be her permanent condition. Written with a sharp eye for the pretensions--and charms--of the intellectual classes, Cambridge captures the mores of an era now past, the ordinary lives of extraordinary people in a singular part of America, and the delights, fears, and longings of childhood.
Brief description: Kathe Mazur (pronounced "kay-ta") is best known on television for the role of DDA Andrea Hobbs that she plays on both The Closer and its hit spin-off, Major Crimes. She has recorded over one hundred audiobooks, including the multi-award-winning Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain and The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, as well as the works of Nora Ephron, Tess Gerritsen, and Jacquelyn Mitchard, among many others. She also has the distinction of having recorded both Hillary Clinton's and Anne Coulter's books in the same month. She has won multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, is an Audie Award nominee, and has been on all sorts of great Best Books lists. She has worked extensively as an actress in film, theater, and television, including on The Mentalist, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Criminal Minds, Suspect Behavior, ER, and Monk. Kathe lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.
Review Quotes: A literary tour-de-force displaying Kaysen's unique talent for creating an engaging ensemble cast that comes uniquely alive under adolescent eyes . . . Affectingly real.-- "Publishers Weekly"