An orange grove boyhood

This memoir of the 20s and 30s abounds with vivid portraits of the boys and girls, wanton or chaste, from the right side of the tracks and the wrong, who shared Pasadena and the orange groves with Lawrence Clark Powell. Simple, straightforward, and rendered with pointillist precision, this reflection encompasses the full scope of his adolescent experience. Thanks to this lyrical memoir, we also recover Southern California that can never be fully lost.