You're visiting San Francisco and hoping to read a book that captures some of the history and unmatched culture of the place. Here is the perfect novel. Inez Ruin comes of age in "Summer of Love" SF, dividing her time between North Beach bachelor dad's pad and former flamenco dancer mom and grandma's home in LA. Funny, unsentimental, and appealing in all the right ways. --Recommended by Stacey, City Lights Books
For the Ruin family in 1970s California, as described by the precocious young Inez, life is complex. Her father, Paul, is self-obsessed, intrusive, and brilliant. He's also twice divorced, leaving Inez to bounce between two worlds and embracing neither-that of Paul's bohemian life in San Francisco and the more sedate world of her mother Connie, a Latin bombshell who plays tennis and attends EST seminars in the suburbs. As Inez progresses through high school we are witness to a remarkable family saga that renders a strange and fascinating slice of America in transition-one like the Ruins of California themselves, at once bold and innocent, creative and chaotic, obsessed and liberating.
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