Mystery Book Hunt

December 6, 2012 1:04 PM

BookFilter: The sketchy detail kind. This is about a young adult novel, available by the early 80s, set among a family of artists or writers in, I think, New York City.

Here's all I can remember about the book:

The protagonist was a young woman.
Her father was a writer struggling with writer's block, I think. He might have been a screenwriter, a novelist, a poet...unsure.
The father also drinks, though I can't remember if that's a major plot feature - but at one point the daughter is rolling her eyes to find out he's down at the "local pub!" (I remember this detail because I had not heard the phrase "local pub" before in my life).
She has a best friend who is sympathetic with this situation.
It is probably set in New York and maybe Greenwich Village specifically.
I may have learned the word "bohemian" from this book.
IIRC, the crux of the whole thing is that the girl wishes she were part of a 'normal' family instead of a broke, arty family.

This isn't much to go on...thanks in advance!

posted by Miko to media & arts (5 answers total)

Anastasia Krupnik?
posted by sunset in snow country at 1:08 PM on December 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

My first thought was "The Two Worlds of Jill" by Patricia Aks, where I first learned the world "bohemian", but I don't think the father was a writer.
posted by Melismata at 1:32 PM on December 6, 2012

I vaguely remember a book with a similar plot. Did the girl make artsy collages as gifts for friends and family? Did she compare her family's patterned carpets on hardwood floors with the wall to wall carpeting at her friends' houses?

(Can't remember the title for the life of me, but just these bits sound familiar.)
posted by maudlin at 1:43 PM on December 6, 2012

This almost sounds more like Mary Stolz's The Noonday Friends than anything else, although the father was a painter, not a writer. I'm also not sure what age range you mean by "young woman" (the protagonist, Franny, was 11).

(Wouldn't have been Anastasia Krupnik, for sure--a) that was in Boston, not NY; b) her father was a professor at Harvard as well as a poet, so the poverty was definitely not a factor.)
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:53 PM on December 6, 2012

Wow - I think it's The Noonday Friends!

I remembered the girl as older, but maybe because when I read it I was younger and 11 just seemed quite old. :)

Thanks - great detective work!
posted by Miko at 2:47 PM on December 6, 2012