The Serial: A Year In The Life Of Marin County

by Cyra McFadden, Tom Cervenak (Illustrator)

Overview

To mark 35 years since The Serial first satirized the silliness of 1970s California, the bestselling novel is back, with new artwork, bonus features, interviews and reviews from the time, plus a new preface by author Cyra McFadden. A comic send up of the 1960s Californian lifestyle - personal growth, human life styling and living together relationships. Kate and Harvey Holroyd try to stay hip and loose through a welter of lentil loaves, natural fibres, enzymes and Zen jogging. From the author of "Rain or Shine".

Set at the very epicentre of the self-obsessed 1970s, when everyone talks (without ever saying anything) in the psychobabble of faddish self-help manuals, it’s the most sophisticated, liberated, high energy, naturally organic and hilarious adult soap opera ever!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908556431
Publisher:	Apostrophe Books Ltd
Publication date:	11/21/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Cyra McFadden is a Bay Area novelist and journalist. Her first book, The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County, was a bestseller worldwide. Her second, Rain or Shine, A Family Memoir, was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category of non-fiction. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Smithsonian and other magazines. She has also been a newspaper columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and UPI, Writer in Residence at St. Paul’s Girls’ School, London, England, and Richard Hugo Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Montana, Missoula, Montana. Born in Great Falls, Montana, McFadden received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English Literature (the latter Magna Cum Laude) from San Francisco State University, where she also taught in the English and Creative Writing departments. She now lives on a houseboat in Sausalito, California and works as a freelance writer and editor.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt: “Once, ten years ago, Marin County had been something they could regard with a mixture of wistfulness and detachment through the haze of smoke at the Buena Vista on Sunday mornings while they drank aquavit and decided where to go for dim sum. Now they lived in Mill Valley. Not in the house they had in mind when they moved, though: the old canyon house with the view of Mount Tam, the leaded windows, the decks and the immutable Marin ambience – a sunny blend of affluence, redwoods, bohemianism and old golden oak furniture bought for a song on McAllister Street. The realtor had shown them a few houses that fit their lyrical descriptions all those years ago, but they had rapidly learned that they couldn’t afford to prop up the sagging foundations, fumigate for scorpions, bring the plumbing up to code and make the necessary structural repairs. In one house they’d seen, which their realtor described as “needing only an infusion of good taste,” Kate had put her foot through a hole in the kitchen floor.”

Latest reviews:

‘One of the most delicious acts of cultural sabotage since Mark Twain’ – Newsweek

‘A put down that’s unputdownable. Don’t go out without it’ – The Sunday Times

‘A deadly satire’ – TIME

‘A superbly original book’ – The Financial Times

‘A comic classic’ – David Lodge

‘The funniest book ever written’ – Lisa Alther

‘A classic of great originality with enduring appeal’ –Jessica Mitford