1
 The Bronx has a wonderful botanical garden, a great zoo, its own charming Little Italy 
5001
span

2
(on Arthur Avenue) 
1
elaboration-additional-e

3
and, of course, the Yankees.
5002
Same-Unit

4
 However, most people, 
5005
Same-Unit

5
having been subjected to news footage of the devastated South Bronx, 
5003
reason-e

6
look at the borough the way 
5003
span

7
Tom Wolfe's Sherman McCoy did in Bonfire of the Vanities 
6
elaboration-object-attribute-e

8
-- as a wrong turn into hell.
5005
analogy

9
 But Laura Cunningham's Bronx, her childhood Bronx of the '50s, is something else altogether.
5115
span

10
 In a lovely, novelistic memoir, Sleeping Arrangements 
5011
span

11
(Knopf, 195 pages, $18.95), 
10
elaboration-additional-e

12
she remembers an exotic playground, 
5013
span

13
peopled mainly by Jewish eccentrics and the occasional Catholic 
5016
span

14
(real oddballs like her sexpot friend, the hell-kitten Diana, age five).
13
example-e

15
 Ms. Cunningham, a novelist and playwright, has a vivid and dramatically outsized sense of recall. 
5022
span

16
She transforms her Bronx of the emotions, a place 
5019
span

17
where the flats of mediocrity are only relieved by steep descents into hysteria 
16
elaboration-object-attribute-e

18
into the Babylonian Bronx, a world 
5020
span

19
simmering with sex and death and intrigue.
18
elaboration-object-attribute-e

20
 In the Babylonian Bronx, Jewish working-class people lived in drab, Soviet-style buildings 
5023
span

21
glamorized with names like AnaMor Towers 
5024
span

22
(after owners Anna and Morris Snezak),
21
explanation-argumentative-e

23
 whose lobbies and hallways were decorated with murals of ancient Syrians and Greeks, friezes of Pompeii.
5024
elaboration-additional-e

24
 For Ms. Cunningham the architectural discombobulation matched the discrepancy 
5027
span

25
she felt 
5028
span

26
living in the AnaMor Towers as a little girl: 
25
manner

27
. . . outwardly ordinary, inwardly ornate, 
5027
elaboration-additional-e

28
owing all inspiration to heathen cultures.
5029
consequence-n

29
 Sharp-witted and funny but never mean, she's a memorialist a bit like Truman Capote, 
5032
span

30
if he'd been Jewish and female and less bitchy.
29
condition

31
 Little Lily, 
5035
span

32
as Ms. Cunningham calls herself in the book, 
31
elaboration-additional-e

33
really wasn't ordinary.
5036
Same-Unit

34
 She was raised, for the first eight years, by her mother, Rosie, 
5037
span

35
whom she remembers as a loving liar, 
34
analogy-e

36
who realigned history 
5039
span

37
to explain 
38
attribution

38
why Lily's father didn't live with them.
5038
span

39
 Rosie reinvented this man, 
5041
span

40
who may or may not have known about his child, 
39
elaboration-additional-e

41
as a war hero for Lily's benefit.
5042
Same-Unit

42
 Rosie died young 
5047
span

43
and Lily has remembered her as a romantic figure, 
5044
span

44
who didn't interfere much with her child's education on the streets.
5056
span

45
 The games 
5049
span

46
Bronx children played 
45
elaboration-object-attribute-e

47
(holding kids down 
5048
Sequence

48
and stripping them, for example) 
5048
Sequence

49
seem tame by today's crack standards, 
5051
Same-Unit

50
but Ms. Cunningham makes it all sound like a great adventure.
5055
span

51
 Without official knowledge of sex or death, 
52
circumstance

52
we flirted with both, 
5053
span

53
she writes. 
5053
attribution

54
She analyzed families by their sleeping arrangements.
5063
span

55
 Her friend Susan, 
5058
span

56
whose parents kept reminding her 
57
attribution

57
she was unwanted, 
5059
span

58
slept on a narrow bed 
5061
span

59
wedged into her parents' bedroom, 
58
elaboration-object-attribute-e

60
as though she were a temporary visitor.
5060
analogy

61
 Her friend Diana's father was a professional thief; 
5064
span

62
they didn't seem to have any bedrooms at all.
61
elaboration-additional

63
 Maybe Lily became so obsessed with where people slept and how 
5066
span

64
because her own arrangements kept shifting.
63
reason

65
 When Rosie died, 
5069
circumstance

66
her uncles moved in 
5069
span

67
-- and let her make the sleeping and other household arrangements.
66
preference

68
 They painted the apartment orange, pink and white, 
5072
span

69
according to her instructions. 
68
circumstance

70
With loving detail she recalls her Uncle Gabe, an Orthodox Jew and song lyricist 
5074
span

71
(who rhymed river with liver in a love song); 
70
elaboration-additional-e

72
and Uncle Len, a mysterious part-time investigator 
5078
span

73
who looked like Lincoln 
5077
List

74
and carried a change of clothing in a Manila envelope, like an undercover President on a good-will mission.
5077
List

75
 They came by their strangeness honestly.
5082
span

76
 Lily's grandmother, no cookie baker, excised the heads of disliked relatives from the family album, 
5081
List

77
and lugged around her perennial work-in-progress, Philosophy for Women.
5081
List

78
 The book loses some momentum toward the end, 
5085
span

79
when Lily becomes more preoccupied with dating boys and less with her delightfully weird family.
78
circumstance

80
 For the most part, though, there's much pleasure in her saucy, poignant probe into the mysteries of the Babylonian Bronx.
5086
span

81
 The Bronx also figures in Bruce Jay Friedman's latest novel, 
5088
span

82
which flashes back to the New York of the '50s. 
81
elaboration-additional-e

83
But both the past and present worlds of The Current Climate 
5089
span

84
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 200 pages, $18.95)
83
elaboration-additional-e

85
 feel cramped and static.
5090
Same-Unit

86
 For his sixth novel, Mr. Friedman tried to resuscitate the protagonist of his 1972 work, About Harry Towns.
5096
circumstance

87
 Harry is now a 57-year-old writer,
5093
span

88
 whose continuing flirtation with drugs and marginal types in Hollywood and New York seems quaintly out-of-synch.
87
elaboration-additional-e

89
 Harry fondly remembers the old days of the early '70s, 
5094
span

90
when people like his friend Travis would take a psychiatrist on a date 
5095
span

91
to analyze what Travis was doing wrong. An L.A. solution, explains Mr. Friedman.
90
purpose

92
 Line by line Mr. Friedman's weary cynicism can be amusing, 
5097
span

93
especially when he's riffing on the Hollywood social scheme 
92
circumstance

94
-- the way 
5098
span

95
people size each other up, 
94
elaboration-object-attribute-e

96
immediately canceling the desperate ones 
5099
span

97
who merely almost made it.
96
elaboration-object-attribute-e

98
 Harry has avoided all that 
5103
span

99
by living in a Long Island suburb with his wife, 
5104
span

100
who's so addicted to soap operas and mystery novels 
5105
circumstance

101
she barely seems to notice 
102
attribution

102
when her husband disappears for drug-seeking forays into Manhattan.
5105
span

103
 But it doesn't take too many lines 
5108
span

104
to figure Harry out.
103
purpose

105
 He's a bore.
5109
span

5001
span
5002
Same-Unit

5002
multinuc
5114
Contrast

5003
span
5004
span

5004
span
5005
Same-Unit

5005
multinuc
5113
span

5006
span



5007
span



5008
span



5009
span



5010
span



5011
span
5012
Same-Unit

5012
multinuc
5033
span

5013
span
5012
Same-Unit

5014
span
12
elaboration-additional-e

5015
span
5014
span

5016
span
5015
span

5017
span



5018
span



5019
span
5021
Same-Unit

5020
span
5021
Same-Unit

5021
multinuc
5026
span

5022
span
5012
elaboration-additional

5023
span
5031
span

5024
span
5025
span

5025
span
20
elaboration-object-attribute-e

5026
span
15
evidence

5027
span
5029
span

5028
span
24
elaboration-object-attribute-e

5029
span
5117
span

5030
span
5023
elaboration-additional

5031
span
5021
elaboration-additional

5032
span
5033
interpretation-s

5033
span
5034
span

5034
span
5084
span

5035
span
5036
Same-Unit

5036
multinuc
5057
span

5037
span
5040
span

5038
span
36
purpose

5039
span
5037
elaboration-additional-e

5040
span
5043
span

5041
span
5042
Same-Unit

5042
multinuc
5040
elaboration-additional

5043
span
5046
span

5044
span
42
analogy

5045
span



5046
span
5083
List

5047
span
5043
elaboration-additional

5048
multinuc
5049
example-e

5049
span
5050
span

5050
span
5051
Same-Unit

5051
multinuc
5052
span

5052
span
44
elaboration-general-specific

5053
span
5054
span

5054
span
50
elaboration-additional

5055
span
5051
interpretation-s

5056
span
43
elaboration-additional-e

5057
span
5034
elaboration-additional

5058
span
5060
Same-Unit

5059
span
55
elaboration-additional-e

5060
multinuc
5062
span

5061
span
5060
Same-Unit

5062
span
5065
List

5063
span
5067
span

5064
span
5065
List

5065
multinuc
54
example

5066
span
5119
span

5067
span
5083
List

5068
span
5070
span

5069
span
5068
span

5070
span
5079
span

5071
span



5072
span
5068
consequence-s

5073
span



5074
span
5075
Same-Unit

5075
multinuc
5080
span

5076
span
5075
Same-Unit

5077
multinuc
72
elaboration-additional-e

5078
span
5076
span

5079
span
5066
explanation-argumentative

5080
span
5070
elaboration-general-specific

5081
multinuc
75
explanation-argumentative

5082
span
5075
comment

5083
multinuc
5036
explanation-argumentative

5084
span
5087
span

5085
span
80
antithesis

5086
span
5084
evaluation-s

5087
span
9
elaboration-general-specific

5088
span
5090
background

5089
span
5090
Same-Unit

5090
multinuc
5091
span

5091
span
5111
span

5092
span
5102
span

5093
span
5096
span

5094
span
5093
elaboration-additional

5095
span
89
temporal-same-time

5096
span
5092
span

5097
span
5101
span

5098
span
5100
span

5099
span
5098
consequence-s

5100
span
5097
elaboration-additional

5101
span
5092
evaluation-s

5102
span
5107
span

5103
span
5102
elaboration-additional

5104
span
98
means

5105
span
5106
span

5106
span
99
elaboration-additional-e

5107
span
5110
span

5108
span
105
circumstance

5109
span
5107
summary-s

5110
span
5091
elaboration-additional

5111
span
5116
Topic-Drift

5112
span



5113
span
5114
Contrast

5114
multinuc
5116
Topic-Drift

5115
span
5114
Contrast

5116
multinuc



5117
span
5030
span

5118
span



5119
span
5063
comment

