num_pages: 336
description: California in the 1970s was an island—a place that seemed broken off from the rest of the United States—and The Ruins of California re-creates that exhilarating decade of American life. For the Ruin family, as described by the precocious young Inez Ruin, life is complex. Her father, Paul, is self-obsessed, intrusive, and profligate but also brilliant and liberating. Uninterested in a monogamous relationship, he’s twice divorced, claiming that “marriage is a bad deal for everyone—particularly women.” Inez bounces between his ultrasophisticated and unregulated bachelor life in San Francisco and the far more sedate world of her mother, Connie, a Latin bombshell who plays tennis and attends est seminars in the Los Angeles suburbs. As Inez progresses through high school, we are witness to the preoccupations of Californians of the era: drugs, sex, art, surfing, motorcycles, Hawaii, Nixon, and the golden rule of not making a big deal out of everything.The Ruins of California brings alive a time and place that have come to define an entire generation. Martha Sherrill has produced a remarkable family saga that vividly renders a strange and fascinating slice of America in transition—one that was at once bold and innocent, creative and chaotic.
language: English
title: The Ruins of California
titlecomplete: The Ruins of California
genres: American, Novels, Coming Of Age, Adult, Historical Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 593
publisher: The Penguin Press