Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family

by Jeff Goodell

In Sunnyvale, California, in 1979, Jeff Goodell's family lived quietly on Meadowlark Lane, unaware that their town was soon to become ground zero in the digital revolution. Over the course of the next decade, as Silicon Valley boomed, the Goodell family unraveled.

Splintered by their parent's divorce, Jeff and his siblings careen toward self-destruction, while their parents end up on opposite sides of the technological divide: their mother succeeds beyond her wildest dreams at "a small company with a dopey rainbow-colored logo," called Apple, while their father refuses to keep up with the times and loses his landscaping business. Affecting and personal, Sunnyvale is a portrait of one family's fate in a brutally Darwinian world. It is also a thoughtful examination of what has happened to the American family in the face of the technological revolution.

Genres: Memoir, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2000

About the author

Jeff Goodell’s latest book is The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. He is the author of six previous books, including The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, which was a New York Times Critics Top Book of 2017. He has covered climate change for more than two decades at Rolling Stone and discussed climate and energy issues on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is a Senior Fellow at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.

Reviews

[Aileen M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Very accurate descriptions of Sunnyvale and the area. Kind of weird to read a memoir about someone from my hometown. I didn't like the subtitle, I felt like it was wrong. Also, the author talks about writing things a lot, which I wasn't very interested in. You don't need to explain being a writer when I'm reading your book? Idk. This review is rather rambling.

[Francesca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining enough while I read it, but ultimately forgettable. The connection to the town of Sunnyvale (emphasis on the "Sunny") felt forced at times.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I also grew up in Sunnyvale. The title is misleading, it is not about the city of Sunnyvale but more about a family with problems that could be anywhere, suffering with divorce at a critical teen rearing age. Yes, many of my friend's families living in Sunnyvale in the 1970's suffered from the divorces of their parents.
The tech industry of Silicon Valley brought about many economic changes, forcing mother's wanting to financially help their households. But chauvinistic fathers feeling their manhood's threatened causing riff in the marriage and then divorce .
My parents never divorced but my mother going to work full time as I started high school putting the extra responsibilities of housewife on to me. The bickering and yelling between my parents was overwhelming. I left for college at age 17 to escape, guilt ridden leaving my younger brother behind, who managed luckily to move in with a classmate/neighbor while finishing high school.
Now I wonder if my parents did divorce instead of staying married they would have been happier separate. Instead my father died in 1985 of a heart attack probably due to anxiety from the angry fighting with my mother instead of divorcing her.

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really didn't enjoy this book at all, but that's partially my fault. In my view, the best thing about it is that it has launched Mr. Goodell's career, where he has since done good things.

I've lived and worked in Silicon Valley since the 1990's, which is when the story told here was winding down. The essential story here is that children growing up in the Valley in the 1970s and 1980s were poorly served by their parents, their schools and their communities, and so a lot of these children ended up self-destructive, miserable, or fleeing to other, friendlier climes. I don't dispute this, nor did I detect much self-pity in Goodell's recounting, to his credit.

However, I am sour on this book because it reminds me of how many middle-class Americans are lashing out at immigrants -- 38% of the population of Santa Clara County, where Sunnyvale is, are foreign-born. But the problems with drugs, alcohol and self-destructive tendencies in our society are entirely home grown, as this book illustrates.

[Elizabeth Gibbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeff grew up in Sunnyvale with his brother, sister and parents who divorced but played vital roles in their children's lives. Jeff pulls you into his family's life, into the heart of it, without glossing over the problems that they faced. I was impressed by his writing ability and very much enjoyed reading this book.

[Esfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

In re-reading this book, I've found virtues in it that I missed years ago. Sunnyvale has changed rapidly in recent years. We are a much more diverse community, and almost half of us are of Asian descent. The days when wobbly start-ups functioned as siren calls to frustrated housewives are long gone. Sunnyvale is Ground Zero in the California housing wars. All the big Techs have imposing office blocks here. The orchards are gone, but the problems of families in crisis today are usually financial.

There are still artists among us, and fortunately there are still perceptive critics of our ever-changing society. So Sunnyvale (the book) is a milestone of where we've been and a guidepost for those willing fortunate enough to run across it.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent the first 11 years of my life in Sunnyvale. I wanted a book that included more of the city as a character. The prose felt almost too journalistic. Despite my misgivings I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. to finish it.

[Firetruckmama · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this might be an interesting view of life in Silicon Valley in the 70's. It is so much more. A first-hand recounting of the devastation of divorce on a family with pre-teen children. A view of drug/alchohol dependence coupled with possibly mental illness and the difficulty for a sibling dealing with this in a family member. Family relationships. The backdrop of a community in transition from a middle-class society to one of emerging wealth, thanks to companies like Apple. This is an extremely well-written and honest account by a 4th generation Californian who left and moved to a farm in upstate New york.

Here's a quote from the jacket sleeve:
"Sunnyvale is a portrait of a way of life that is no more, in a place where progress runs wild. It is about individuals struggling to make lives for themselves in a brutually Darwinian world. Above all, it is about what we owe to the people we love. A unique and compelling family story, it is also a resonant document of our age."

Not sure about the Darwinian world but the rest of it seems about right.
Kudos to the author.

[Vinod Jayachandran · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Typical SOAP book, which can be adapted to a Indian Mega Serial. The flow is quite good, but there is hardly any suspense that you look forward to chapter after chapter. Even If you flip through few chapters , there is nothing much you miss out.

I picked up this book, hoping it would be a Technology oriented novel, talking about the evolution of technology, but was completely disappointed. There was absolutely no relation to Computer world. It just deals typical family issues of brother, sister, parents , girlfriends, marriage, divorce etc. The author has unnecessarily introduced many characters such as their grand parents life which has nothing substantial or to be admired about.

Definitely not worth even one time read.

[Donna Stuedeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I would not have titled it "Sunnyvale" because the story had very little to do with the town, I would not have read it unless that was the title.
Jeff, I grew up two blocks away from you at the same time and went to the same schools. You've probably heard this before, but you were not alone in your experiences. If only kids felt free to talk about what was going on, they would not have been so alone and might have made better choices. Thank you for sharing this and at least letting people know they weren't alone, if only in retrospect.

[Shivaun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Came accross an extract purely by accident on the internet. Got bitten and ordered the book. Disfunctional family in Silicon valley. Characters leap of the pages. Story beautifully told. Couldn't put it down. Etc. etc.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

read it for a sociology class. remind me not take any more sociology classes.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

fun book to read, especially since I lived in Sunnyvale while growing up... :-)

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this book hardly needs my endorsement ... but i's excellent. Was rec. to me by a lady in No. California ... it's indeed part of the must-read California bookshelf, I'd say.

[Jeanette Krogstad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book group pick - an intriguing blend of family dysfunction (a la Jeannette Walls) and a glimpse of what Sunnyvale and Silicon Valley were in the 70s-80s.