Good change-up, a grownup book for once

Naked in the Promised Land
Lillian Faderman

Excellent biography of a Jewish girl growing up with a near-crazy mother and a slightly less crazy aunt.  The two sisters fight like cats and dogs--mostly over her--but somehow hold it together to give her a loving home.  Or really, two loving homes. 

The mother works as a mannequin dresser for the smallest of wages, but somehow keeps her daughter fed, dressed and housed--in cheap rented rooms, of course.  She takes her daughter to the movies--Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer and endless other classics that were once right then and now.  Her greatest ambition is for her daughter to become a movie star and elevate them all to the easy life.

The daughter, Lillian, has a great body for pin-ups (even at fourteen), but an unfortunate nose and unfashionable, dusky hair that shuts her out of most of the real acting jobs.  It's a shame, because she seems to be a pretty good actress.  But she finds a way to make money anyway.

No more telling.  I'd almost give this a 5-star rating, but the ending was abrupt and it annoyed me.