Volume 1 of Barry Smolin's trilogy The Miranda Complex follows the digressive mind of 18-year-old Lance Atlas as he sits at the La Brea Tar Pits, midway through the summer of 1979, after having run into Miranda Savitch at a party the night before. The encounter provokes a swirl of kaleidoscopic memories, both sacred and profane, set against a cultural backdrop that includes an adolescent-eye view of the politics, film, literature, and, especially, music of the era, as well as a mythic rendering of Los Angeles in the 1970s. By turns raunchy and awkward and neurotic, Lance's narration chronicles the years 1972-1976 with promises of many more memorable angsty teenage escapades to come.