Living on Madison Avenue

In LIVING ON MADISON AVENUE (set, obviously, on Madison Avenue, a rich area of New York), Lawrence sews together snatches from his mature life and the hurt of his younger years. Maturing from his confused youth into a solid marriage, along the way Lawrence dodged the Vietnam draft and later served a two-year jail sentence for tax evasion. He praises how lithium flattened out his manic-depression, itemizes the death of his relatives and friends, and describes the dead: "Delicious, I love them all, all my little candies made out of memories and chocolate." Woven through all his life experiences is his evolving association with his wife as she tries "to bite into the knuckles and meat / of our relationship."