Summer at Tiffany

USA Today

“This book offers insights into the women who lived through World War II. It’s a perfect Mother’s Day gift.”

Booklist

“Hart’s infectious vivacity resonates with a madcap immediacy, delectably capturing the city’s heady vibrancy and a young girl’s guileless enchantment.”

BookPage

“Charming and fun…reminiscent of The Best of Everything and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Buffalo News

“The (Tiffany) company should put this book on prominent display, for heaven’s sake—it’s that much of a paean.”

San Diego City Beat

“What do you imagine might be the most memorable summer of your life? Do you think it’s happened yet?

Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Hart writes about that stylish summer with verve, recollecting with a touching purity a magical summer in Manhattan.”

Publishers Weekly

At the age of 82, Hart, a professional cellist, recalls 1945, when she and her best friend, Marty, students at the University of Iowa, spent the summer in Manhattan, in this pleasant but slight memoir. Failing to obtain work at Lord & Taylor, the pair, self-described as long-limbed, blue-eyed blondes, were hired at Tiffany's—the first female floor sales pages, delivering packages to the repair and shipping department, for $20 a week. Hart details their stringent budget ("1. Two nickels for subway. 2. Sandwich at the Automat: 15 cents") and describes, somewhat breathlessly, what a thrill it was to see such luminaries as Marlene Dietrich and Judy Garland shop at the fabled store. Her romance with a midshipman, the combat death of her cousin, the news of the dropping of the first atomic bomb and a vivid account of the celebration in Times Square after Japan's surrender convey a sense of the WWII era, but without adding much illumination. She does, however, evoke New York City as seen through the eyes of two innocent smalltown girls. 16 pages of b&w photos and illus. (Apr.)

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Ah, old New York: city of Snow balls at the Stork Club, egg salad at the Automat, and breakfast at Tiffany, of course. All three institutions figure in this debut memoir set during the summer of 1945, when then Iowa sorority girl Hart, along with best friend Marty, ventured into Manhattan in search of shop-girl positions at Lord & Taylor. When that dream is dashed, the two call on an affluent lawyer reference, who helps them get jobs as the first female pages at Tiffany. Readers glimpse the glamour of their work (with a cameo by newlyweds Judy Garland and Vincent Minnelli) and sense the excitement of the city (as on V-J Day). Now 82 and retired from a university post, Hart competently conjures her giddy girl self, but this persona may be too wide-eyed and innocent for modern memoir readers. Take it from this New Yorker (a former midwesterner like Hart): the city ain't always pretty and couldn't have been 60 years ago either. Where, for that matter, is World War II in this fairy-tale summer? It comes but too late, and because she refuses to relinquish much innocence, Hart's sudden sadness seems out of place. Recommended for nostalgic members of the "greatest generation" and ardent New Yorkologists. [See Prepub Alert, LJ12/06.]
—Heather McCormack

Kirkus Reviews

Manhattan during the summer of 1945, as the author remembers it. The country was at war, food was rationed and money was tight, but University of Iowa coeds Marjorie Jacobson (now Hart) and Marty Garrett somehow scraped together $40 each to buy roundtrip train tickets so they could spend a summer in New York. On arrival, the Midwestern beauties sublet an apartment in Morningside Heights and landed jobs as pages at Tiffany & Co. Never before had the venerable store hired young women to run errands from the sales floors to the mysterious upper reaches of the fabled Fifth Avenue emporium, but during wartime, everyone had to sacrifice. The discreet tap of a salesman's diamond ring (they all sported one) against a glass display case would set Marjorie and Marty, wearing silk dresses that matched Tiffany's trademark blue, skittering in high heels across polished floors. Between assignments, they watched for celebrity shoppers. Who could be next? Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli? Marlene Dietrich? The Duke of Windsor? In the evenings and on weekends, the wide-eyed yet commonsensical duo embraced all that 1945 New York had to offer: the Stork Club, The Glass Menagerie and Carousel on Broadway, ice cream sundaes at Schrafft's. Midshipmen escorted them to Jack Dempsey's and to Greenwich Village eateries. Kindly neighbors invited them over for lemonade and musical evenings at which Marjorie played the cello. Along the way, they developed crushes on men in uniform and endured such mild work traumas as a string of pearls coming undone in an elevator, but the undoubted highlight of their summer was joining two million other revelers in Times Square on August 14 when Truman announced victory in Japan.The 82-year-old author's memories have been polished smooth over the course of six decades, and her warm account of more innocent times makes an unspoken comparison with the way we live now. A fond backward glance.

BookPage

"Charming and fun…reminiscent of The Best of Everything and Breakfast at Tiffany’s."

Booklist

"Hart’s infectious vivacity resonates with a madcap immediacy, delectably capturing the city’s heady vibrancy and a young girl’s guileless enchantment."

USA Today

"This book offers insights into the women who lived through World War II. It’s a perfect Mother’s Day gift."

Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Hart writes about that stylish summer with verve, recollecting with a touching purity a magical summer in Manhattan."

San Diego City Beat

"What do you imagine might be the most memorable summer of your life? Do you think it’s happened yet?

Buffalo News

"The (Tiffany) company should put this book on prominent display, for heaven’s sake—it’s that much of a paean."

Emily Giffin

"A charming story of a charmed summer…I didn’t want Marjorie Hart’s effervescent memoir to end."