From Library Journal
Harpo, born Adolph, reminisces in this 1961 autobiography about growing up on East 93rd Street in New York City. In a conversational style, he remembers his short-lived formal education in public schools he was thrown out a window by other students in the second grade and never went back and his less-formal education in street hustling from older brother Chico, as well as his other famous brothers, parents, and grandparents. This additionally contains an introduction by E.L. Doctorow. A real charmer. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
One hundred years ago, little Adolph ("Harpo") Marx was literally tossed out of Miss Flatto's second grade classroom and onto a life on the streets of New York. His unceremonious exit from the New York City public school system set in motion a chain of events which Harpo describes with an engaging mixture of sweetness and hilarity in this memoir of a child's life in an immigrant family at the turn of the century. With New York City as his classroom, Harpo taught himself to read by deciphering the signs at the pool parlor and to tell time by watching the hands of the brewery clock. Such lessons were squeezed between more pressing concerns -- how to duck the neighborhood bullies or keep a half-step ahead of his brother Chico. E. L. Doctorow's introduction recalls his own childhood affection for Harpo's antics and foresees, in the chaos and unpredictabiliity of the comedian's early years, the source of his surrealistic and anarchic comedy. Harpo Speaks...About New York paints an unforgettable portrait of the dawn of an extraordinary talent, set against the evocative, sepia-toned landscape of turn-of-the-century Manhattan.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Long before vaudeville, Broadway, and the silver screen, Harpo Marx had triumphed on the greatest stage of all: New York City.

For a kid on the streets in 1902, every day demanded wit and improvisation. Beyond the door of the tenement at 179 East 93rd Street lay rival gangs, lucky breaks, failed hustles. While his mother Minnie was occupied elsewhere--planning her unruly brood's ultimate destiny--Harpo roamed the streets doing what any self-respecting second grade dropout would: grabbing the family's one left-foot skate and heading to Central Park; preparing for the bonfires of a Tammany election night; and hopping on the El to watch "the Gods in Valhalla--which is to say, the New York Giants in the Polo Grounds."

With an unforgettable cast of characters, and set against turn-of-the-century Manhattan, Harpo Speaks...about New York overflows with the optimism and sweetness of the kid who, on the off chance that "Sandy Claus" just might remember him, never forgot to hand his stocking in the airshaft on Christmas Eve.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Harpo, born Adolph, reminisces in this 1961 autobiography about growing up on East 93rd Street in New York City. In a conversational style, he remembers his short-lived formal education in public schools he was thrown out a window by other students in the second grade and never went back and his less-formal education in street hustling from older brother Chico, as well as his other famous brothers, parents, and grandparents. This additionally contains an introduction by E.L. Doctorow. A real charmer. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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