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Cheerful Money

Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor
By Tad Friend (Trade Paperback, 2010)
Tad Friend's family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of Swarthmore College, and at Smith his mother came in second in a poetry contest judged by W.H. Auden--to Sylvia Plath.  For centuries, Wasps like his ancestors dominated American life.  But then, in the '60s, their fortunes began to fall.  As a young man, Tad noticed that his family tree, for all its glories, was full of alcoholics, depressives, and reckless eccentrics.  Yet his identity had already been shaped by the family's age-old traditions and expectations.  Part memoir, part family history, and part cultural study of the long swoon of the American Wasp, Cheerful Money is a captivating examination of a cultural crack-up and a man trying to escape its wreckage.
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  • Little, Brown and Company

    • Format: Trade Paperback

    • Price: $14.99 US/$17.99 CAN

    • ISBN-13: 9780316003186

    • On Sale Date: 07/01/2010

    • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

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    Formats Available: Hardcover Book, Trade Paperback, Electronic Book

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Tad Friend's family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of Swarthmore College, and at Smith his mother came in second in a poetry contest judged by W.H. Auden--to Sylvia Plath.  For centuries, Wasps like his ancestors dominated American life.  But then, in the '60s, their fortunes began to fall.  As a young man, Tad noticed that his family tree, for all its glories, was full of alcoholics, depressives, and reckless eccentrics.  Yet his identity had already been shaped by the family's age-old traditions and expectations.  Part memoir, part family history, and part cultural study of the long swoon of the American Wasp, Cheerful Money is a captivating examination of a cultural crack-up and a man trying to escape its wreckage.

Tad Friend is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes the magazine's "Letter from California." Prior to that, he wrote regularly for Outside, New York, and Esquire, and wrote travel stories from all seven continents. He plays golf and squash and watches a lot of television. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Amanda Hesser, and their children, Walker and Addie.


  • Cheerful Money by Tad Friend

  • "Cheerful Money is side-splittingly funny and touching, without being the least predictable. It has the verve of Nick and Nora Charles with their silver martini shakers, and some insights mournful as Kafka's. This will become a classic." (author of Lit and The Liars' Club).

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Product Details

Cheerful Money
  • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
  • Price: $14.99 US/$17.99 CAN
  • Pages: 384
  • Physical Dimensions: 5-1/2" x 8-1/4"
  • ISBN-13: 9780316003186
  • On Sale Date: 07/01/2010
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Cheerful Money
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