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The Haight
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1967: Grace Mackenzie, RN, deals with the flood of patients during Haight-Ashbury's Summer of Love. It’s a time of transition, new lives--but also dangerous street drugs, a murderous cabal, and future epidemics. “The Haight” is a time capsule, historically and socially accurate, with famous musicians mingling with unknown street people as tourists stare while the world changes.
1967: Grace Mackenzie, RN, deals with the flood of patients during Haight-Ashbury's Summer of Love. It’s a time of transition, new lives--but also dangerous street drugs, a murderous cabal, and future epidemics. “The Haight” is a time capsule, historically and socially accurate, with famous musicians mingling with unknown street people as tourists stare while the world changes.
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 30, 2011
About the author
Karin Bishop
37 books63 followersI started writing as a child, and won my first national writing award in sixth grade. I edited and wrote for my high school and college creative writing magazines, but then life got in the way and didn’t write fiction for years—I wrote for hire. Magazine articles (in music and travel), advertising copy, corporate newsletters and software manuals paid the bills. I have always been interested in the discovery of a person’s true nature and sexual identity, and began exploring different literary genres and structures to tell those important stories.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 25, 2024
where do I start and try to do you justice?
Your story was riveting from start to finish. One item I have adopted is never read the Epilogue because I do not want to be turned away from the sole purpose of the story, I want the full entertainment experience. Karin your story was such an emotional read. I highly recommend readers have home Kleenex by your side as you progress. I experienced moments where I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath. So many parts reflect the times of the 60’s onward. Absolutely brilliant.
James
Your story was riveting from start to finish. One item I have adopted is never read the Epilogue because I do not want to be turned away from the sole purpose of the story, I want the full entertainment experience. Karin your story was such an emotional read. I highly recommend readers have home Kleenex by your side as you progress. I experienced moments where I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath. So many parts reflect the times of the 60’s onward. Absolutely brilliant.
James
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May 12, 2012Didn't finish it. I thought it would be a fun book to read that would be filled with memories of the 60's. Instead, it was a platform used to promote the authors agenda. I was very disappointed and didn't finish the book, which is very unusual for me.
September 28, 2012
wow that sucked! I couldn't even finish it. so glad it was free. I would've bated to have wasted money
March 17, 2020
A look into this section of San Francisco as times were beginning to change away from the hippie culture, but were still going strong. Nothing too surprising. Self-made family takes in one more youth and sets him on the path to becoming a girl. Drugs play into a dirty cop/real estate/drug company plan that tries to interfere with the communal vibe. Would have loved to see a whole page go by without the word "grinned" on it.
May 23, 2013
First, I have to say that I disagree with the previous review--I can't believe that any of the statements made are connected to this book. I truly believe that some other book's review was posted here by mistake.
I was extremely taken by this book. I was transported to San Francisco in the Sixties and it felt absolutely authentic. The mixture of historical figures and fictional ones was seamless, to me, and obviously a tremendous amount of research went into the writing (I know, because I googled several things and found them to be accurate!).
The characters seemed a little cardboard at first, "types", but then I realized it was my 21st century expectations of hippies. They all developed into 3-dimensional people, making their interplay all the more poignant.
The last thing I'd like to say is about the underlying theme of change; all the changes of the characters, of course, but also our country in change. Ms. Bishop didn't hit me over the head with them and make them obvious; they were the everyday changes that these people lived through, that add up to momentous changes in society.
The true test, for me, is that I wanted to go back in time and spend more time with these people! Well done!
Merged review:
Whoa! Surprised at the negative reviews; I get the feeling they reviewed the subject matter instead of the writing. I thought it was an accurate time capsule of the 60s Haight-Ashbury life, based on everything I've read on the period; the writing was clear and characters believable. I particularly liked the "seasoning" of real-world people (from the Grateful Dead to Manson) through the day-by-day existence of the book's characters.
I've got to say something about the transgendered character--I thought this was quite sensitively handled, taking into account this takes place in a time before we had the awareness of gender that we have now.
And talk about awareness! The nurse (main character) suffers from the dated 50s concept of "men become doctors, women become nurses" although she has so much more to offer, and discovers a talent for epidemiology when she's tracking bad street drugs (very real!).
Throughout the book there were glimpses of the New among the Old mindset, that made the Sixties so pivotal--changes in the travel industry, changes in corporate politics, and so on, that I found quite fascinating.
My only complaint was wanting to learn more about some of the characters, the women who lived in the house, but at least there's an appendix of sorts so I know what happened to them.
And while reading this book, I felt that I was experiencing the Summer of Love!
I was extremely taken by this book. I was transported to San Francisco in the Sixties and it felt absolutely authentic. The mixture of historical figures and fictional ones was seamless, to me, and obviously a tremendous amount of research went into the writing (I know, because I googled several things and found them to be accurate!).
The characters seemed a little cardboard at first, "types", but then I realized it was my 21st century expectations of hippies. They all developed into 3-dimensional people, making their interplay all the more poignant.
The last thing I'd like to say is about the underlying theme of change; all the changes of the characters, of course, but also our country in change. Ms. Bishop didn't hit me over the head with them and make them obvious; they were the everyday changes that these people lived through, that add up to momentous changes in society.
The true test, for me, is that I wanted to go back in time and spend more time with these people! Well done!
Merged review:
Whoa! Surprised at the negative reviews; I get the feeling they reviewed the subject matter instead of the writing. I thought it was an accurate time capsule of the 60s Haight-Ashbury life, based on everything I've read on the period; the writing was clear and characters believable. I particularly liked the "seasoning" of real-world people (from the Grateful Dead to Manson) through the day-by-day existence of the book's characters.
I've got to say something about the transgendered character--I thought this was quite sensitively handled, taking into account this takes place in a time before we had the awareness of gender that we have now.
And talk about awareness! The nurse (main character) suffers from the dated 50s concept of "men become doctors, women become nurses" although she has so much more to offer, and discovers a talent for epidemiology when she's tracking bad street drugs (very real!).
Throughout the book there were glimpses of the New among the Old mindset, that made the Sixties so pivotal--changes in the travel industry, changes in corporate politics, and so on, that I found quite fascinating.
My only complaint was wanting to learn more about some of the characters, the women who lived in the house, but at least there's an appendix of sorts so I know what happened to them.
And while reading this book, I felt that I was experiencing the Summer of Love!
January 26, 2014
I think this could have been a really good book except for the writing. It was so stilted and unimaginative. I'm really interested in this period but the poorly written dialog made the characters seem flat and not interesting to me at all. I felt like I was reading the diary of an over-emotional 14 year old girl. I know that seems like a contradictory statement, but that's exactly what I thought of when reading the exchanges between the characters. Sorry. Wouldn't recommend it.
July 14, 2013
I wish I could get back the time I spent reading this. The characters were too improbable, a young boy who is a girl, a nurse who should be an epidemiologist, a reporter who breaks a big story after being declared dead, Charlie Manson, Janis Joplin.
February 6, 2020
A very good read
Not my first time reading this story and just as good to read this time. So many good characters, though I would have enjoyed to read more about them. The end did seem to come a bit quickly.
Not my first time reading this story and just as good to read this time. So many good characters, though I would have enjoyed to read more about them. The end did seem to come a bit quickly.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews