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The Serial
Are you into Living Together Relationships? Personal Growth? Human Life Styling? Is your desire Creative Control? Sadomasochism? Staying MellowAt All Costs? Then you will relate to Cyra McFadden’s The Serial.
To mark 35 years since it was first published, the novel has gone on sale in e-book form for the first time, with new artwork, bonus features, interviews and reviews from the time, plus a new preface by author Cyra McFadden. There are also bonus features, reviews and an interview with Cyra McFadden from the time, plus a look back at how the inhabitants of the San Francisco community reacted as their area – and habits – became the focus of world attention.
Described by Newsweek as “one of the most delicious acts of cultural sabotage since Mark Twain” and author Lisa Alther as “the funniest book ever written”, it mercilessly satirises the inhabitants of Marin County, California in counter-culture-gripped 1976.
Here, in 52 scintillating episodes, are the essential Kate and Harvey Holroyd, desperate fighters in the struggle to stay hip and loose in Marin County, California – a welter of lentil loaves, enzymes, whip fantasies, natural fibres, TM, Zen jogging and vibes both good and bad.
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!
To mark 35 years since it was first published, the novel has gone on sale in e-book form for the first time, with new artwork, bonus features, interviews and reviews from the time, plus a new preface by author Cyra McFadden. There are also bonus features, reviews and an interview with Cyra McFadden from the time, plus a look back at how the inhabitants of the San Francisco community reacted as their area – and habits – became the focus of world attention.
Described by Newsweek as “one of the most delicious acts of cultural sabotage since Mark Twain” and author Lisa Alther as “the funniest book ever written”, it mercilessly satirises the inhabitants of Marin County, California in counter-culture-gripped 1976.
Here, in 52 scintillating episodes, are the essential Kate and Harvey Holroyd, desperate fighters in the struggle to stay hip and loose in Marin County, California – a welter of lentil loaves, enzymes, whip fantasies, natural fibres, TM, Zen jogging and vibes both good and bad.
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!
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 12, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
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August 10, 2020This book was suggested to me via an editor whom I admire. I'm still trying to process what I thought of the novel, though. I have to admit that it felt a little bit beyond me at times. There were so many cultural references that I was not familiar with and the language was so specific to the era that it read almost like dialect. That was very interesting.
It's certainly a clever send-up of 70s in Marin County. And you can still feel some of those reverberations of that period today in the Bay Area!
It's certainly a clever send-up of 70s in Marin County. And you can still feel some of those reverberations of that period today in the Bay Area!
December 18, 2008
This book is a time capsule and timeless in that it is an important link in recent um, evolution, if you will. My parents had this book hanging around when I was young and because there were illustrations, I tried to read some of it. Particularly one chapter, entitled "Dealing with the Whole Child." I remember thinking at the time, this is just some grown up b.s.
Well, guess what. Thirty years later I have the same reaction only hilariously so! The author manages to capture sure an essence of the time period without sounding it dated today, meticulously crafting great satire and making the reader care about some pretty narcissist a-holes along the way. I don't think it's a book that confines itself to the Marin county it takes place in- we've known people like the ones in the book, and we still know people like those in the book (switch the words "swapping" with "polyamorous") but I did appreciate the name dropping of old establishments. Because of the straight dryness, I had to put the book down and wonder if the author was serious many times as I read. Luckily, there were signs here and there that let me know that she was in on the joke, or was at least chronicling events that she saw while laughing hysterically inside. And luckily for me, I didn't have to hold my laughs back as I read.
I might have to follow in my parents steps with this book- no, not with any cult joining or consciousness raising. I remember that they bought copies and gave them to all of their friends, and I'm this close to doing the same. Now if only there was a reprint of the spiral bound version...
Well, guess what. Thirty years later I have the same reaction only hilariously so! The author manages to capture sure an essence of the time period without sounding it dated today, meticulously crafting great satire and making the reader care about some pretty narcissist a-holes along the way. I don't think it's a book that confines itself to the Marin county it takes place in- we've known people like the ones in the book, and we still know people like those in the book (switch the words "swapping" with "polyamorous") but I did appreciate the name dropping of old establishments. Because of the straight dryness, I had to put the book down and wonder if the author was serious many times as I read. Luckily, there were signs here and there that let me know that she was in on the joke, or was at least chronicling events that she saw while laughing hysterically inside. And luckily for me, I didn't have to hold my laughs back as I read.
I might have to follow in my parents steps with this book- no, not with any cult joining or consciousness raising. I remember that they bought copies and gave them to all of their friends, and I'm this close to doing the same. Now if only there was a reprint of the spiral bound version...
January 17, 2011
My sister and I used to read this every summer to the point where we had worn it out and had to buy a new copy. Now we each own our own copy and it is funnier every time I read it. A wonderful read again and again and I highly recommend everyone to have their own copy (or two in case you wear it out!).
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December 12, 2025I suspect you have to be my age or a bit older to get a kick out of this novel (with a heaping helping of nostalgia a la Bored of the Rings). I read it back in the seventies, and found it a laugh riot. I'd met rich wannabe hippies. They really did talk like that--while throwing megabucks around carelessly. They weren't just in Marin County.
Rereading it, the bite is still there, but it's not as funny. Partly the careless cruelty to animals for a laugh, partly because nobody is very likeable. But back then I was so used to having had to read books full of unlikeable people for English classes. (One of the reasons why I majored in history.)
Inevitably a lot is dated, and a dinner for two that costs 37 bucks seems painfully cheap now. But I remember when two of us could get great Mexican food plus tip for under ten bucks, so yeah. Proportions.
Rereading it, the bite is still there, but it's not as funny. Partly the careless cruelty to animals for a laugh, partly because nobody is very likeable. But back then I was so used to having had to read books full of unlikeable people for English classes. (One of the reasons why I majored in history.)
Inevitably a lot is dated, and a dinner for two that costs 37 bucks seems painfully cheap now. But I remember when two of us could get great Mexican food plus tip for under ten bucks, so yeah. Proportions.
November 4, 2025
This is one of the most deadly, spot-on satires of a specific American time and place ever written.
Specifically, this literary skewer pierces the heart of southern Marin County (just north of the Golden Gate Bridge) in the mid-late Seventies. This was the time of the 'human potential' movement, of Carl Rogers' humanist psychology, of EST, and of lifestyle experimentation born equally from the hangover of Haight Street hallucinogens, the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate withdrawal from the public sphere, and Castro Street coming-out, coming into oneself, and just plain coming.
Marriage, the body, the self, sexuality, the environment: all were works in progress, and everything was up for discussion and experimentation except the need for discussion and experimentation. McFadden catches all of it, with a droll affection that renders the satire all the more effective. It's very nearly ethnography, and it's very funny.
Specifically, this literary skewer pierces the heart of southern Marin County (just north of the Golden Gate Bridge) in the mid-late Seventies. This was the time of the 'human potential' movement, of Carl Rogers' humanist psychology, of EST, and of lifestyle experimentation born equally from the hangover of Haight Street hallucinogens, the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate withdrawal from the public sphere, and Castro Street coming-out, coming into oneself, and just plain coming.
Marriage, the body, the self, sexuality, the environment: all were works in progress, and everything was up for discussion and experimentation except the need for discussion and experimentation. McFadden catches all of it, with a droll affection that renders the satire all the more effective. It's very nearly ethnography, and it's very funny.
March 28, 2012
The Serial was written in chapters and publishing in the local alternative newspaper, the Pacific Sun. I saw Cyra McFadden speak recently at a writer's club meeting, and she revealed the dynamics of writing satire about a place so easy to poke fun at. Marin County remains a stew of improbable people and scenarios, over thirty years after McFadden's serial.
Since I am in the thick of writing my own serial based in the SF Bay area, and I live in Marin County, I read the compiled book version with great interest. It's almost scary how little has changed. As an author, I could see the difficulty McFadden encountered in keeping the stories going. When she spoke at Book Passage she said it was hard for her to look at the writing now herself, but that's often the author's experience. She invented the characters and set them loose in the ridiculous landscape of the privileged in the '70s. It's just too repetitive after a few chapters, all the references, the silly language, and the predictable behaviors. What she was doing, however, was chronicling an era and a locale, and she did it with painful precision.
The Serial stands up better if chapters are not read one after the other. Just as they were published, weekly in the Pacific Sun, readers need a rest between the toxic jabs at the poor characters wallowing in the human potential movement and suffering as they simultaneously reach for and avoid the real meaning of personal accountability.
If you're curious about what happened in Northern California in the late 70s, you can get a very clear look at it in Cyra McFadden's book, The Serial.
Suzanna Stinnett
Since I am in the thick of writing my own serial based in the SF Bay area, and I live in Marin County, I read the compiled book version with great interest. It's almost scary how little has changed. As an author, I could see the difficulty McFadden encountered in keeping the stories going. When she spoke at Book Passage she said it was hard for her to look at the writing now herself, but that's often the author's experience. She invented the characters and set them loose in the ridiculous landscape of the privileged in the '70s. It's just too repetitive after a few chapters, all the references, the silly language, and the predictable behaviors. What she was doing, however, was chronicling an era and a locale, and she did it with painful precision.
The Serial stands up better if chapters are not read one after the other. Just as they were published, weekly in the Pacific Sun, readers need a rest between the toxic jabs at the poor characters wallowing in the human potential movement and suffering as they simultaneously reach for and avoid the real meaning of personal accountability.
If you're curious about what happened in Northern California in the late 70s, you can get a very clear look at it in Cyra McFadden's book, The Serial.
Suzanna Stinnett
August 23, 2018
Episodic skewering of Marin County lifestyles in the 1970s. Not great literature by any means, but humorous and informative about the classic "me decade" lifestyles.
Note: the movie version (which I remembered as being bad) departs significantly from the book.
Note: the movie version (which I remembered as being bad) departs significantly from the book.
February 24, 2019
This is a fun satire of middle class white liberals in the 1970's.
October 6, 2020
Serious Childhood Flashback
Although The Serial was written as a satire, the joke, which is an inside joke to anyone who grew up in Marin in the 70's, is that so much of what Cyra McFadden pokes fun at actually happened.
As a transplant from Southern California, I arrived in Marin in 1973. And it was a happening thing. The constant jibes at consciousness raising, environmental awareness and BEcoming were something integral to life in Marin.
McFadden uses much poetic license in describing the "interrelationships" scene of that time. The irony is in the core of truth behind her story. I watched my friends parents go through wild changes and never batted an eye.
At age 16, I enrolled in est, Erhard Seminar Training, for personal growth and because it was de riguer. Much fun is poked at the consciousness raising movement but it was deadly serious.
I thoroughly enjoyed McFadden's sense of humor and her attention to detail. Especially the walk down memory lane of historical places in Marin.
Ultimately, I had to reflect upon why, when I left California, people I encountered from the rest of the world thought I was such a fruit loop. A great read.
Although The Serial was written as a satire, the joke, which is an inside joke to anyone who grew up in Marin in the 70's, is that so much of what Cyra McFadden pokes fun at actually happened.
As a transplant from Southern California, I arrived in Marin in 1973. And it was a happening thing. The constant jibes at consciousness raising, environmental awareness and BEcoming were something integral to life in Marin.
McFadden uses much poetic license in describing the "interrelationships" scene of that time. The irony is in the core of truth behind her story. I watched my friends parents go through wild changes and never batted an eye.
At age 16, I enrolled in est, Erhard Seminar Training, for personal growth and because it was de riguer. Much fun is poked at the consciousness raising movement but it was deadly serious.
I thoroughly enjoyed McFadden's sense of humor and her attention to detail. Especially the walk down memory lane of historical places in Marin.
Ultimately, I had to reflect upon why, when I left California, people I encountered from the rest of the world thought I was such a fruit loop. A great read.
January 6, 2019
Once upon a time, Armistead Maupin started writing a serial for the Pacific Sun about a Marina neighborhood group of friends. But then the Marin-based Pacific Sun closed down its SF branch. Maupin moved on to the San Francisco Chronicle, where he wrote renowned Tales of the City books, and the Pacific Sun began looking for a new serialist to tell the story of their home base: Marin County. The result was The Serial.
And it's ... OK. It's primarily satire about the hippy crunchy-granola lifestyle of Marin in the '70s. And a lot of it is so much closer to the idiot hippy crunchy-granola lifestyle of some people in the Bay Area today that it doesn't read like satire anymore. The loss of that humor deprives the book of most of its interest, because the characters and their plots just aren't that interesting.
I put it down after the first 9 entries because I realized I just wasn't finding them interesting.
And it's ... OK. It's primarily satire about the hippy crunchy-granola lifestyle of Marin in the '70s. And a lot of it is so much closer to the idiot hippy crunchy-granola lifestyle of some people in the Bay Area today that it doesn't read like satire anymore. The loss of that humor deprives the book of most of its interest, because the characters and their plots just aren't that interesting.
I put it down after the first 9 entries because I realized I just wasn't finding them interesting.
December 28, 2009
Not so much a novel, as a 319-page catalogue of the ways that affluent Marin County residents were annoying during the 1970s. That said, it's a very quick read - the characters may be paper thin, but the satire is sharp and funny. The book is sort of like a transitional fossil of the shift from hippies to yuppies, as the characters seek out all sorts of status goods while endlessly yammering about auras and process and, like, the wholeness of the integrated person, you feel me? It's fascinating to see which aspects of this time and place have entered the mainstream (sushi, biking, therapy speak) and which have become obsolete (fern bars, jumpsuits, the assumption that a man can't work a laundry machine). I'd be curious to learn if something similar exists for Berkeley - that seems like an equally ripe target for this kind of humor.
May 27, 2021
I laughed out loud more than once. For someone my age (at the time, Marlene's age, one of the characters in the book) it's nostalgic to recognize something in almost every line, whether it is a brand, a fashion or an attitude. I definitely knew many of these types of people, although not all in the 1970s. A lot of these same attitudes persist in my peers although we're old now. Although McFadden points out the illogic and egotism of the hapless Marin types she skewers, I find them--all these decades later--endearing and harmless. They're no worse than the 'types' in the present--just different, specific to the political and social era that made them. If you intend to read the book, just be aware that it is no more realistic than Gulliver's Travels--the satire rules and everything is bent to that end. It might give you some laughs if you remember the times.
February 7, 2020
A classic in its time, full of sharp-eyed satire and spoofing of the culture, this book could use an update for today's Snowflakes and Millennials...A generation that can't laugh at itself is a generation to worry about.
August 31, 2008
Absolutely devastating satire of the "California lifestyle."
TOO funny! McFadden's ear for jargon and cant is infallible.
TOO funny! McFadden's ear for jargon and cant is infallible.
November 11, 2025
It's 1976 in Marin County. The Serial was serialized, a 500-1000 word chapter every week in the Pacific Sun - a Marin County weekly, and later the SF Chronicle too.
Some of the humor still works but it also get old and repetitive and maybe too insider nostalgic. But it's a fun quick read. It's a fast paced soap opera, a sendup of the the self-help/human-potential scene, open marriages, permissive parenting, cocaine, hot-tubbing, and the builtin irony of being competitively liberal (naming children Che) while just behind the curtain you're actually competitively rich and privileged.
It was fun looking up or being reminded of all the brand names, places, and institutions of the time. Here's my glossary:
Brown Jordan - outdoor patio furniture for tasteful suburban affluence
Salton Hot Tray -- Electric warming tray (Harvey uses it to dry socks)
Waterbed - lots of comic affect (getting in/out with sore back)
Danskin leotards - shows how active and fit you are while you smoke and drink wine
Cutty - Cutty Sark, seemed like the drink of choice
Pepperidge Farm Milanos - sophisticated cookies, impresses the neighbors
Tiger's Milk - some kind of energy drink or bar. It impresses people
Wine - lots of wine. Wine wine, the women drink wine
Virginia Slims - "I am liberated while I smoke"
Dunhills - I have something better than your Virginia Slims
Sominex - Helps you sleep
Mentholatum - using this shows you uphold some traditions
EST - if you haven't done this you should just move to Daly City
Synanon - EST on steroids. Shave your head. Great quote: “... the games are what really did it for me. I mean what you’ve got is this whole community of people who care enough to tear you apart.”
Valium - doesn't mix with Cutty
Librium - doesn't mix with Valium
Real places and what they mean:
Mill Valley - Main setting, makes you feel slightly inadequate living here
Tiburon/Belvedere - Envy envy envy
Fairfax - counterculture creds. Hard to top.
Bolinas - tops Fairfax. People from Fairfax like to name drop Bolinas as often as possible
San Rafael - where all the good bars are
Falkirk - Best place to renew your wedding vows
Daly City - Suggest someone should live here, ultimate insult
Some quotes:
About teen character Joan (Kate & Harvey's daughter) who disappeared to Amsterdam to find herself. Kate reports: “Joan says she was hanging out in the Vondell Park and all of a sudden it hit her: zap! She knew what she wanted to do with her life: be a dental hygienist.”
Joan's ex boyfriend Spenser telling Harvey that Joan is in Amsterdam: "She's in Amsterdam. It says right there on the postcard, you dig?" Spenser, like Joan, had gone to Tam High. "Amsterdam's not in Holland, it's in Europe."
Some of the humor still works but it also get old and repetitive and maybe too insider nostalgic. But it's a fun quick read. It's a fast paced soap opera, a sendup of the the self-help/human-potential scene, open marriages, permissive parenting, cocaine, hot-tubbing, and the builtin irony of being competitively liberal (naming children Che) while just behind the curtain you're actually competitively rich and privileged.
It was fun looking up or being reminded of all the brand names, places, and institutions of the time. Here's my glossary:
Brown Jordan - outdoor patio furniture for tasteful suburban affluence
Salton Hot Tray -- Electric warming tray (Harvey uses it to dry socks)
Waterbed - lots of comic affect (getting in/out with sore back)
Danskin leotards - shows how active and fit you are while you smoke and drink wine
Cutty - Cutty Sark, seemed like the drink of choice
Pepperidge Farm Milanos - sophisticated cookies, impresses the neighbors
Tiger's Milk - some kind of energy drink or bar. It impresses people
Wine - lots of wine. Wine wine, the women drink wine
Virginia Slims - "I am liberated while I smoke"
Dunhills - I have something better than your Virginia Slims
Sominex - Helps you sleep
Mentholatum - using this shows you uphold some traditions
EST - if you haven't done this you should just move to Daly City
Synanon - EST on steroids. Shave your head. Great quote: “... the games are what really did it for me. I mean what you’ve got is this whole community of people who care enough to tear you apart.”
Valium - doesn't mix with Cutty
Librium - doesn't mix with Valium
Real places and what they mean:
Mill Valley - Main setting, makes you feel slightly inadequate living here
Tiburon/Belvedere - Envy envy envy
Fairfax - counterculture creds. Hard to top.
Bolinas - tops Fairfax. People from Fairfax like to name drop Bolinas as often as possible
San Rafael - where all the good bars are
Falkirk - Best place to renew your wedding vows
Daly City - Suggest someone should live here, ultimate insult
Some quotes:
About teen character Joan (Kate & Harvey's daughter) who disappeared to Amsterdam to find herself. Kate reports: “Joan says she was hanging out in the Vondell Park and all of a sudden it hit her: zap! She knew what she wanted to do with her life: be a dental hygienist.”
Joan's ex boyfriend Spenser telling Harvey that Joan is in Amsterdam: "She's in Amsterdam. It says right there on the postcard, you dig?" Spenser, like Joan, had gone to Tam High. "Amsterdam's not in Holland, it's in Europe."
July 23, 2025
Life's a trip, you know?
"As she got ready for Martha's wedding, Kate reflected happily that one great thing about living in Marin was that your friends were always growing and changing. She couldn't remember, for example, how many times Martha had been married before." [p12]
These sentences, plucked more or less at random from this little book, provide a good illustration of its style and subject: if you don't find yourself snorting with laughter (or maybe just smirking) at them, then you won't like the rest of this satire of the West Coast mid-70's lifestyle of young marrieds (and not-so-marrieds). The story is centred on Kate and Harvey, who take a look at their marriage and attempt to "redefine the parameters of their interface", whilst they worry about "being put down" when they "dump on somebody" who doesn't "know where they're coming from". Along the way, they mix with their similarly-minded friends, who say things like "For sure [...] Do you know how busy I've been lately? I haven't even read the last three issues of Harper's. *That's* how busy I've been." [p17], and who aren't supportive of Kate when she says that "she'd like to take assertiveness training but was afraid Harvey wouldn't let her" [p16].
I read this for the first time - and thought it hilarious - a few years ago, and was pleased to be able to track down another copy last month. As other reviewers have noted, it's from the same mould as Diary of a Nobody in that the protagonists aren't aware that the author is laughing at them - but not necessarily in a malicious way: the humour is mostly gentle, and nothing bad happens to the characters. Recommended.
Originally reviewed 5 October 2015
"As she got ready for Martha's wedding, Kate reflected happily that one great thing about living in Marin was that your friends were always growing and changing. She couldn't remember, for example, how many times Martha had been married before." [p12]
These sentences, plucked more or less at random from this little book, provide a good illustration of its style and subject: if you don't find yourself snorting with laughter (or maybe just smirking) at them, then you won't like the rest of this satire of the West Coast mid-70's lifestyle of young marrieds (and not-so-marrieds). The story is centred on Kate and Harvey, who take a look at their marriage and attempt to "redefine the parameters of their interface", whilst they worry about "being put down" when they "dump on somebody" who doesn't "know where they're coming from". Along the way, they mix with their similarly-minded friends, who say things like "For sure [...] Do you know how busy I've been lately? I haven't even read the last three issues of Harper's. *That's* how busy I've been." [p17], and who aren't supportive of Kate when she says that "she'd like to take assertiveness training but was afraid Harvey wouldn't let her" [p16].
I read this for the first time - and thought it hilarious - a few years ago, and was pleased to be able to track down another copy last month. As other reviewers have noted, it's from the same mould as Diary of a Nobody in that the protagonists aren't aware that the author is laughing at them - but not necessarily in a malicious way: the humour is mostly gentle, and nothing bad happens to the characters. Recommended.
Originally reviewed 5 October 2015
October 11, 2025
Originally ran serialized in the Pacific Sun, which you can easily see would be a better way to saunter through the story. It leans heavily on mocking Marinite vocabulary and vapidity of the 70's, but (and this could be true to life, as McFadden noted in an interview that people around her increasingly began talking this way and it drove her crazy) the laughs in this can get stale if you're tearing through seven or eight short chapters at a time.
As a lifelong Marin native from the mid-80's on, the satire here feels both discernable and traceable, while also not being at all similar to what Marin's Whole Deal has ever been in the last few decades. Pretty well written, entertaining, a nice breezy read.
Was turned into a really dismal movie starring Martin Mull, which does nonetheless have some nice late 70's/early 80's filming locations in Southern Marin.
As a lifelong Marin native from the mid-80's on, the satire here feels both discernable and traceable, while also not being at all similar to what Marin's Whole Deal has ever been in the last few decades. Pretty well written, entertaining, a nice breezy read.
Was turned into a really dismal movie starring Martin Mull, which does nonetheless have some nice late 70's/early 80's filming locations in Southern Marin.
August 11, 2021
A contemporary satire of various 70s cliches which may have been very funny in its time but now is just of historical interest -- I appreciated seeing what things looked like in the moment they were happening, but it wasn't really enjoyable either as story or satire or even as historicity, since the characters were so one-dimensional and the author's disdain for them was so clear. I am kind of curious about Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman now, though -- it seems like something I should have heard of before now!
August 30, 2018
A bit late with this review but I agree with most of the reviews here of The Serial - both positives and negatives, it's that kind of a book.
What I would add as an update is that if you enjoyed the Hulu TV series 'Casual' (now on Prime in the UK) and you'd like to see where Valerie, Alex and Laura's problems all started, then have a read of this book. It's a hoot ! But as someone else has said, take it in small bites - it's a little rich to consume in one go !
What I would add as an update is that if you enjoyed the Hulu TV series 'Casual' (now on Prime in the UK) and you'd like to see where Valerie, Alex and Laura's problems all started, then have a read of this book. It's a hoot ! But as someone else has said, take it in small bites - it's a little rich to consume in one go !
January 11, 2022
Looking back, I have to ask: why did I bother reading this book? Oh yeah...I wanted to read comedic novels because a therapist told me I should write comedy. Nonetheless, I still wanted to write a novel.
So I decided to try to write a comedic novel. Hard to do. I failed. And so, because of my failure, I'll be generous and give this book three stars.
So I decided to try to write a comedic novel. Hard to do. I failed. And so, because of my failure, I'll be generous and give this book three stars.
November 6, 2025
Loved the 1980 movie, Serial. Never knew it was a book. FYI, the movie script is smarter, and funnier. Watch the movie. You can feel the movie as you read this collection of moments, but it's not as good. Still, it's just 110 oversize-pages, and worth the time. A glimpse of the woke silliness of California in the '70s.
August 24, 2022
I really enjoyed this book, was so different and I love satire of the middle classes and how universal it all is? Despite coming from different periods. Sometimes felt like the stories ran a bit out of steam but enjoyed it overall and was interesting to read in the format.
August 23, 2019
No idea how I stumbled across this book or why I decided to read it around age 13-14.
December 6, 2019
A comic soap opera book set in Marin County in the 1970's. I call these people early yuppies, self-absorbed, but very funny.
June 13, 2020
If you experienced any of the late 1970s in Northern California/Marin, this is a painfully funny read - 4 stars of so bad it's good - but if not, this will probably just seem painfully stupid.
June 21, 2020
Hysterical. Any Marinite would read this and see how little has changed.
June 25, 2020
Not for everybody, to be sure!
The movie was hilarious.
The movie was hilarious.
January 3, 2021
Still funny.
October 29, 2022
I am surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I mostly read it since I live in Marin County and wanted to experience Marin in the 70s, but also loved the story.
April 11, 2023
funny drawings and stories from marin county when it was probably at its climax of "california culture", pre internet and smartphone
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews