By Suzanne Donahue | Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Off the Shelf was lucky enough to get a review from New York literary agent, Molly Friedrich, about a book she loves that also happens to be one she represented. “It’s true that I am Mary-Ann Tirone Smith’s literary agent, but it is also true that this book is absolutely terrific. I recommend Girls of Tender Age not to toot my own horn, but to bring this book to your attention because it is out of this world, and deserves to be read and remembered!” —Molly

Girls of Tender Age is both comic and tragic, but readers do not leave the story with a wrenched heart.They come away exhilarated.

 Mary-Ann Tirone Smith’s saga of post WWII New England revolves around an ever-breeding, extended, French-Italian family struggling to climb the ladder out of the housing projects and into a productive life.Their socioeconomic status is best described by her father: Working Stiffs.

 1950s Hartford is small-town America.Within one square mile of Mary-Ann’s street is her school, her church, a little branch library, a drugstore, the five-and-dime, bakery, food market, and a bustling tavern. No one locks their doors, the kids play outside after dinner till the street lights come on, and the bestselling book on everyone’s nightstand is The Power of Positive Thinking.
In the mix of family lore, food, weddings, food, funerals, food, new cousins born every year, and food is Mary-Ann’s brother Tyler, who is deemed “retarded.”When Mary-Ann’s mother tries to explain to a doctor at the famous Boston Children’s Hospital that her son can’t be retarded because he has a library of every book written on the subject of WWII and is presently in the waiting room reading Winston Churchill’s Arms and the Covenant, the doctor rolls his eyes.Mary-Ann, a consummate eavesdropper, hears her aunts’ opinion of her mother’s state often:“Florence is on the verge of a nervous breakdown ever since poor Tyler was born.”
Only when she is a college student does Mary-Ann discover that Tyler isn’t retarded—he’s autistic.He was born before the disorder was diagnosed or named.Tyler is, in fact, a savant, something she learns as an adult when her cousins call her to ask if she’s seen Rain Man.“Mary-Ann!Dustin Hoffman is Tyler!”