this is the hardcover version. I highly recommend reading it in paperback.
Norman Mailer, or someone like that says on the back cover of this book that it's the "Great California Novel." Maybe. It has the fabric and life of California in it, and maybe moreso than other "California" stories. It's about young and youngish people looking for love in and around San Francisco, and it has sort of "California" attitudes about love transcending gender or appropriateness.
But the most interesting thing about the novel is that it's written in all sonnets. And it kind of works. Occasionally it gets ridiculous, but honestly the sonnets make the book a different, more fascinating kind of read. The poetry gives it a light but powerful touch. At points in the reading, I reflected that poetry might be the only real way to capture San Francisco in writing.
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