- 272 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
A New Yorker Best Book of 2021
A “touching, heartbreaking, and exceptional” (Town & Country) coming-of-age memoir by the daughter of artistic, bohemian parents—set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, Cape Cod, and Mexico.
Hayden Herrera’s parents each married five times; following their desires was more important to them than looking after their children. When Herrera was only three years old, her parents separated, and she and her sister moved from Cape Cod to New York City to live with their mother and their new hard-drinking stepfather. They saw their father only during the summers on the Cape, when they and the other neighborhood children would be left to their own devices by parents who were busy painting, writing, or composing music. These adults inhabited a world that Herrera’s mother called “upper bohemia,” a milieu of people born to privilege who chose to focus on the life of the mind. Her parents’ friends included such literary and artistic heavyweights as artist Max Ernst, writers Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy, architect Marcel Breuer, and collector Peggy Guggenheim.
On the surface, Herrera’s childhood was idyllic and surreal. But underneath, the pain of being a parent’s afterthought was acute. Upper Bohemia captures the tension between a child’s excitement at every new thing and her sadness at losing the comfort of a reliable family. For her parents, both painters, the thing that mattered most was beauty—and so her childhood was expanded by art and by a reverence for nature. But her early years were also marred by abuse and by absent, irresponsible adults. As a result, Herrera would move from place to place, parent to parent, relative to family friend, and school to school—eventually following her mother to Mexico. The stepparents and stepsiblings kept changing too.
Intimate and honest, Upper Bohemia “captures an enchanted but erratic childhood in a rarefied milieu with the critical but appreciative eye of a seasoned art historian” (The Wall Street Journal). It is a celebration of a wild and pleasure-filled way of living—and a poignant reminder of the toll such narcissism takes on the children raised in its grip.
A “touching, heartbreaking, and exceptional” (Town & Country) coming-of-age memoir by the daughter of artistic, bohemian parents—set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, Cape Cod, and Mexico.
Hayden Herrera’s parents each married five times; following their desires was more important to them than looking after their children. When Herrera was only three years old, her parents separated, and she and her sister moved from Cape Cod to New York City to live with their mother and their new hard-drinking stepfather. They saw their father only during the summers on the Cape, when they and the other neighborhood children would be left to their own devices by parents who were busy painting, writing, or composing music. These adults inhabited a world that Herrera’s mother called “upper bohemia,” a milieu of people born to privilege who chose to focus on the life of the mind. Her parents’ friends included such literary and artistic heavyweights as artist Max Ernst, writers Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy, architect Marcel Breuer, and collector Peggy Guggenheim.
On the surface, Herrera’s childhood was idyllic and surreal. But underneath, the pain of being a parent’s afterthought was acute. Upper Bohemia captures the tension between a child’s excitement at every new thing and her sadness at losing the comfort of a reliable family. For her parents, both painters, the thing that mattered most was beauty—and so her childhood was expanded by art and by a reverence for nature. But her early years were also marred by abuse and by absent, irresponsible adults. As a result, Herrera would move from place to place, parent to parent, relative to family friend, and school to school—eventually following her mother to Mexico. The stepparents and stepsiblings kept changing too.
Intimate and honest, Upper Bohemia “captures an enchanted but erratic childhood in a rarefied milieu with the critical but appreciative eye of a seasoned art historian” (The Wall Street Journal). It is a celebration of a wild and pleasure-filled way of living—and a poignant reminder of the toll such narcissism takes on the children raised in its grip.
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Yes, you can access Upper Bohemia by Hayden Herrera in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Preface
- 2017: View from the Porch
- Chapter 1: The Big House
- Chapter 2: Friends
- Chapter 3: Turkey Farm
- Chapter 4: Divorce
- Chapter 5: Manhattan
- Chapter 6: Mountain Climber
- Chapter 7: Scary
- Chapter 8: Granny Blair
- Chapter 9: Birthday Parties
- Chapter 10: Thoughts
- Chapter 11: The City
- Chapter 12: Cornwall
- Chapter 13: Dasya
- Chapter 14: Mougouch
- Chapter 15: Hickory Ridge
- Chapter 16: Toads
- Chapter 17: The Manheims
- Chapter 18: Gaga
- Chapter 19: Naked
- Chapter 20: Coche de Mama
- Chapter 21: Mexico
- Chapter 22: Coyoacán
- Chapter 23: Cuernavaca
- Chapter 24: Outings
- Chapter 25: Parque Melchor Ocampo
- Chapter 26: With Family
- Chapter 27: Without Blair
- Chapter 28: Escuela Pan Americana
- Chapter 29: Betrayal
- Chapter 30: Myrtle Street
- Chapter 31: Edward Norman
- Chapter 32: Beach Glass
- Postscript
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Copyright