<p>'The best memoir of the past fifty years.' -- New York Times<br><br>'Why can't you find a nice man to be happy with?' my mother is saying. We are walking down Ninth Avenue after a noon-hour concert at Lincoln Centre. 'Why do you pick one schlemiel after another? Do you do this to make me miserable?'<br><br>Vivian Gornick's relationship with her mother is difficult. At the age of forty-five, she regularly meets her mother for strolls along the ...