The coming of age of a late bloomer and quiet dreamer set in a small beach town community of southern California during the early 1960s.
Born into a musical family and raised on dreams of fame and glory, twenty-two-year-old Lorraine is finding it tough going on her own when she moves to Hollywood in the early 1960s.
Her Associate of Art's degree from the local junior college does not help her get a job in the art field. And if that isn't enough, her longtime boyfriend has broken up with her. The job she does have as a receptionist is also a disaster, so when she comes down with severe laryngitis, she is ready to call it quits. Accepting defeat, she takes the twenty-mile ride home to Hermosa Beach.
But home isn't quite the same at 230 Culper Court. In her absence, her usually sensible mother has moved out to live "in sin" with a used car salesman named Bob. Replacing her at the cottage is Lorraine's older sister, Arlene, her three children and Lorraine's younger brother, Jeff. Arlene is an artist-of what kind, she is not always sure. She is talented but erratic and seems almost mystified by the fact that she has three children to raise. Jeff is a budding jazz saxophonist, a shy boy who somehow draws people around him.
Lorraine's life takes a different turn as she learns to fit in with her newly re-arranged family and all the strange and talented people who pass through the little red cottage by the sea.
An intriguing and often humorous memoir of a unique family influenced by a hard-working mother who just missed being a saint and a father, the wild jazz pianist and entertainer known in the 1940s as Harry the Hipster Gibson whose amazing abilities and crazy style influenced the evolution of Rock and Roll.
Includes 15 illustrations by the author and a collection of 37 family photos in black and white.