Gifted young Caroline Ryder comes of age in one of the most pivotal decades of our time. Tormented by her disturbed mother, she doesn't fit into the materialistic sameness of her San Francisco Bay Area "Tupper's Park" neighborhood. Identifying with the plight of southern blacks, she joins the Civil Rights movement, encounters pacifists, hears Beat literary voices and radical educators at Pacific High, explores her sexuality at Big Sur, and boosts the anti-Vietnam marches in Berkeley, city of her birth.
As the shadow of the drug culture falls over this post-Beat, pre-Hippie idealism, sixteen year old Caroline is catapulted to Mexico where she hitchhikes with nineteen year old Nors and hides out briefly with writer Ken Kesey's colorful enclave.
When she finally enters U.C. Berkeley at seventeen, she is called a "dirty Hippie" by sorority types who will later claim the Summer of Love as their own. But Caroline Ryder, who lived it, will always know better.
Lynn Rogers, M.A., born in Berkeley, has published
articles, fiction and illustrations. She teaches Creative Writing
through Metro Ed in San Jose.
About the Author