MEMOIRS

Sleeping Arrangements, the story of an orphan raised by her two
bachelor uncles became a modern classic and garnered these reviews:

Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird:

“A beautiful story I shall cherish for years to come…”

New York Times: “A model memoir, funny, sad, irreverent and generous.”
Michiko Kakutani

The Baltimore Sun: “Reads like a novel. You may find yourself sitting very quietly, mulling over the marvels of this truly wonderful book.” Anne Tyler.

The Wall Street Journal:
“A world simmering with sex and death and intrigue…Sharp witted and funny but never mean, she is a memorialist a bit like Truman Capote…” Julie Salamon,

The Washington Post: “An enchanting memoir…”

Sunday London Telegraph: “Laura Shaine Cunningham blends memory, fantasy and reality with a sure touch; her book is funny and resolutely unsentimental, a contribution to the literature of childhood experience as well as a tribute to her long-lost mother, to her remarkable, generous-hearted uncles and to the saving grace of family loyalty and affection.”

A Place in the Country

The New York Times Book Review (COVER review)
“Cunningham makes it delightfully clear that the horrors of the simple life, from snakes to nasty neighbors, are right up front with the bliss…she’s a sharp and witty writer. If this particular memoirist were offering up 287 pages on life in an auto parts dealership, you’d be well advised to accept…This book…reminds me most of “The Egg and I”…published in l945, remains a pleasure to read. Half a century from now, someone is sure to be saying the same thing about “A Place in the Country.” – Laura Shapiro

“…as engaging as “Sleeping Arrangements”. Adept at poking fun at her and her husband’s city-slicker dreams, Ms.Cunningham also gives us some delightful portraits of …their friends and neighbors.” -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

The San News Jose Mercury:
Sleeping Arrangements…was so extravagantly loved by readers and reviewers that A Place in the Country” would seem destined to suffer by comparison. It doesn’t; A Place in the Country” is warm, funny, shrewd and fabulous entertaining.” What comes as a surprise (is) how much of the book spins off in astonishing directions as Cunningham’s life transforms and deepens…..”

The Chicago Tribune
“This is a wiser, deeper voice than the one heard in Sleeping Arrangements” and it is a voice well worth listening to, equally convincing for its range and hard-won clarity” – Floyd Scoot

NOVELS

Sweet Nothings

Excerpted in the Atlantic Monthly and Cosmopolitan.

Boston Globe:
“Alarmingly funny and like the best humor, all too true.”

The Kansas City Star:
“Comic Genius!”

San Francisco Examiner:
“Irreverent and effervescent!”

Memphis Press-Scimitar:
“As wittily devastating as Dorothy Parker and a tighter writer than Anita Loos, Laura Cunningham makes sexual passion the funniest thing to hit the mattress.”

Houston Chronicle:
“The funniest, freest exposition of the game of sex lurking under the covers of LOVE.”

Third Parties

The New York Times: “Witty”

Beautiful Bodies

The New York Observer:
“Makes one want to shower Ms.Cunningham with kisses…its little universe calls to mind Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.Dalloway. ..luminous and dark. Funny and sad, airy and filled with meaning.” Alexandra Jacobs

Dreams of Rescue

Publishers Weekly:
“Laura Shaine Cunningham’s best novel to date.”

PLAY REVIEWS

BANG

Chicago Magazine:
“Cunningham has created a fantastic reality in her play, but within the nonsense are disturbing ideas that won’t be received by an audience unless delivered by laughter.”

Chicago Herald:
“Cunningham came up with the idea for this play while researching a story for The New York Times on survivalists…a preposterous black comedy that highlights one manifestation of our modern madness.”

Beautiful Bodies

Variety:
The sophisticated and often funny repartee contribute to the play’s swiftness and appeal. The parts vey nearly play themselves, needing only some seasoned pros to add the right dash of pepper and spice.”

The Star-Ledger:
“It’s a juicy, jazzy party, with a bottomless punch bowl of wit.”

The Austin Chronicle:
“Playwright Laura Cunningham’s razor-sharp ear for dialogue carries the whole thing along like a breeze. Cunningham’s ability to reveal characters’ innermost insecurities via their reactions to hors d’oeuvres recalls the intense party sequences in works by Mike Leigh.