My Young Life

by Frederic Tuten

Novelist, essayist, and critic Frederic Tuten recalls his personal and artistic coming-of-age in 1950s New York, a defining period that would set him on the course to becoming a writer.

Born in the Bronx to a Sicilian mother and Southern father, Frederic Tuten always dreamed of being an artist. Determined to trade his neighborhood streets for the romantic avenues of Paris, he learned to paint and draw, falling in love with the process of putting a brush to canvas, and the feeling it gave him. At fifteen, he decided to leave high school and pursue the bohemian life he’d read about in books, a life of salons and cafes and “worldly women” from whom he could learn and grow. But, before he could, he would receive an extraordinary education, right in his own backyard.

My Young Life is the story of those early formative years where, in the halls of Christopher Columbus High School, and later the City College of New York, Frederic would discover the kind of life he wanted to lead. As Tuten travels downtown for classes at the Art Students League, spends afternoons reading in Union Square, and discovers the vibrant scenes of downtown galleries and Lower East Side bars, he finds himself a member of a new community of artists, gathering friends, influences—and many girlfriends—along the way.

Frederic Tuten has had a remarkable life, writing books, traveling around the world, acting in and creating films, and even conducting summer workshops with Paul Bowles in Tangiers. Spanning two decades and bringing us from his family’s kitchen table in the Bronx and the cafes of Greenwich Village and back again, My Young Life is an intimate and enchanting portrait of an artist’s coming-of-age, set against one of the most exciting creative periods of our time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, New York, Biography Memoir

320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2019

About the author

Frederic Tuten is the author of Tintin in the New World, The Green Hour, and Self Portraits, among other fiction. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Writing. He lives in New York City."

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

Well...that was wonderful. So much heart in this book.

[Robert Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frederic Tuten has a reputation as an author of fairly airless postmodern novels, which makes this memoir such a surprise. Raised in poverty in the Bronx, he developed a desire to be an artist (he tried visual art first before switching to writing) not because he had some burning desire to produce art but because the idea of being an artist was so appealing. He'd move to Paris and bed worldly French girls. The other most important thing in his young life was getting laid, and his erotic adventures as a teenager, college student, grad student and Greenwich Village quasi-bohemian are a major and totally entertaining aspect of the book. He portrays himself as painfully naive, puffing himself up to get girls to sleep with him. This memoir is gritty, amusing and often very sad. I loved it.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Award-winning author Frederic Tuten recounts twenty or so years of his youth (early 1940’s to the 60’s) and does not spare himself.  Reared in the Bronx, he longs for his on-again, off-again father; and, like many (most?), he struggles with agonizing uncertainty while, at the same time, is sure he’s far superior to, well, just about everybody.  Seems he’s not going to be an artist after all, so he gets into and out of college by the skin of his teeth and now desperately wants to write, but you see, his work must be the best anyone has ever seen, must be because….hmm….well, it’s his.  Paralyzing, you know, and always gets in the way of headway.  He tells us, too, openly and in detail, that sex pretty much tops his needs list, and he is in love and lust through a variety of affairs, life consuming chunks.

Along the way, to his good fortune….and credit, Frederic meets so many who see his promise.  They nudge him along and/or back onto his bumpy, twisty path, and we are privileged to meet them as well.  But my favorite and, I think, the most influential character in this young man’s life is New York, the wondrous city itself.  Tuten’s writing is lean, quirky, and rings like a bell, so even though there were times when I wanted to give Fred a good shake and a talking-to, I was engrossed and pulling for him all the way.

Scheduled to drop from Simon & Schuster on March 5, 2019.

Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Simon & Schuster via NetGalley. I would like to thank the publisher and the author for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been a while since I’ve read something like My Young Life. This was a memoir covering Fred’s early life and it was separated in essays that read like journal entries. The thing that really impressed me was the palpable tone that kept changing throughout the book. It ends in a sad and lonely place; but from that sad loneliness came some of the most well articulated essays in literature and equally thought provoking art work.

[Edward Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A louche New York, well worth visiting. Tuten’s memoir reminded me a bit of “Kafka Was The Rage” by Anatole Broyard—intellectual New York in the 1950’s, poor New Yorkers aspiring for higher things, while drinking coffee in Greenwich Village—a wonderful story of youth and joy and longing in a City that seems almost vanished. A must read for any native, or anyone who wanted to be one.

[Maureen Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't give five stars to too many books; I've a very critical reader, especially of memoir, the genre that I write and teach. But this quiet book is utterly captivating. Brilliant and sensory, Tuten's coming-of-age is told in chronological vignettes from childhood to just post-college, of his yearning to be an artist, a writer, from the poverty of his youth. The book feels as if you are saturated in the moment, and he then steps back to offer reflection, in long footnotes, sometimes as obituaries of the people he’s written about who influenced him, the characters of the Bronx, Brooklyn, City College, Greenwich Village, his lovers and mentors,. His was a life rich in experience, in observation and longing and desire, though he was financially poor through these years. This memoir is traditional and its success speaks to sense that memoir doesn't have to be experimental or flashy or shock-trauma to be deeply engaging and transportive, but rather to capture a sensibility, and with the wisdom of decades, to bring to it that self-deprecatory humor and commentary, which Tuten does in the most subtle but effective way. I love this book.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ok read, but somehow it never really worked for me. I'm a bit younger than Tuten, but grew up similarly, though my family (thanks to rent control) was never as economically fragile as his.
I read most of the books he mentions around the same age he read them. I spent a lot of time in the
bookstores he mentions, and liked the same artists. Back then, my political views were quiet similar to his. I, too, did not drive until well after college. So, yes, the nostalgia is fun. New York then was a nice place to grow up. There was always something to do.

But beyond the above, this book was just not all that interesting. I got tired of reading all the times Tuten screwed up. The book is oddly humorless. Most of all, I found this too much of a diary of his sex life, and his obsession with the physical appearance of women. I have no objection to sexual narratives, but this just was not an interesting one.

Finally, for someone who appears to be a widely respected writer, the prose is strangely flat.

And how does anyone remember all this stuff?

[Stoyan Vassilev · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an honest and vivid portrayal of the life of an artist in search of his art. It is a down-to-earth tale of a likable, fallible, curious young man, and is told in a way that steers clear of the common pitfalls of the genre: In the pages of the book there's not a speck of self-pity, in-his-own-eyes wisdom, or gratuitous self-deprecation. The narrator's hindsight is not 20/20 on the mistakes he has made. The voice that takes us through the streets of the Bronx, Mexico, and Cuba to meet a bevy of memorable characters is at times funny, but never snarky; sad, but never brooding; intellectual and instructive, but never snobby or pedantic.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The gods of serendipity are responsible for sending this my way. I was looking at Isabelle Adjani movies on imdb and found Tuten's name attached to the source material for "Possession." Wikipedia sent me to this recent book, I took a chance and was repaid with this beautifully written memoir that I will hold in the same esteem as I do Frank Conroy's "Stop Time" and Vivian Gornick's "The Odd Woman and the City." I hope he is working on a sequel.

[Stacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I like reading about the NY of the 40's,50's and early 60's. It's a different sort of memoir than I would typically read. A portrait of the artist as a young man. Today in finishing it I was a bit frustrated - I get it dude, you were getting with a lot of pretty ladies. I didn't feel this way the first 3/4 of the book though.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wished this book was longer! I grew up in the Bronx and appreciated his descriptions of the neighborhood, especially his relationship with his grandmother. One small pet peeve though. He uses the word "subway" as a verb a few times and I found it really annoying. I also wish there were a few more photos. A great read for a born and raised New Yorker.

[* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, sweet memoir that illustrates how important the people in our lives are.

[Matthew Binder · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treat to spend a few days immersed in the NYC of Tuten's youth. It's impossible not to root for this young man as he strives to find himself.

[Aronz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the style of Tuten's writing a bit flat and wasn't impressed with the narrative. It has it's moments and insights, but on the whole nothing special.

[emilee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easiest 5 stars to give. This book feeds the artist inside of me, brewing. A lot of soul and mind went into this book

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved everything about this memoir. It spoke to the artist and writer in me, and captured perfectly the struggle to make art without discipline, time and money.

[Lansgood]

Nice