''Growing Up'' is touching and funny, a hopeless muddle of sadness and laughter that bears a suspicious resemblance to real life.

How wrong I was to expect the normal in Mr. Baker's background, having seen that instead of normalcy, it took precisely the adversity that Mr. Baker faced down to produce his sense of humor. Without the smallest protest, I concede the power of this alchemy. After all, how else would it have been possible for the author to take such raw, potentially wrenching autobiographical material, and make of it a story so warm, so likable and so disarmingly funny? It is also magical that Mr. Baker has taken a story told a thousand times before and made of it a work of original biographical art.