If you know me, you know I really enjoy Melanie Benjamin’s novels. My very favorites of hers were The Aviator’s Wife (about one of my heroes, Anne Morrow Lindbergh) and The Swans of Fifth Avenue. This novel was slightly different for me as she was writing about people who didn’t really exist. The read felt like historical fiction, but there was no nonfiction for me to hang my hat on, if that makes sense. So this read more like a novel set in the past (1960/70s) in California. Once my mindset was in that space, I easily latched on to the characters and storyline. This was a moving story: at times I wanted to cry for how neglected these young girls were, and I found that storyline very engaging. I loved reading about California as I grew up there (though I’m a wine country girl, not a SoCal beach person).

Melanie Benjamin’s prose is always a treat. She writes artfully, placing the reader into the character’s head and helping us to understand their motivations and desires. I look forward to seeing what she brings to us next!

Thank you for my review copy via Net Galley!

Description

Two sisters navigate the thrilling, euphoric early days of California surf culture in this dazzling saga of ambition, sacrifice, and the tangled ties between mothers and daughters from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife.

“A shimmering rendering . . . pairs the surf culture of the Beach Boys with the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll of Daisy Jones & The Six.”—Entertainment Weekly (“Best Books of the Summer”)

Southern California, 1960s: endless sunny days surfing in Malibu, followed by glittering neon nights at Whisky a Go Go. In an era when women are expected to be housewives, Carol Donnelly breaks the mold as a legendary female surfer struggling to compete in a male-dominated sport—and her daughters, Mindy and Ginger, bear the weight of Carol’s unconventional lifestyle.

The Donnelly sisters grow up enduring their mother’s absence—physically, when she’s at the beach, and emotionally, the rare times she’s at home. To escape questions about Carol’s whereabouts—and to chase her elusive affection—they cut school to spend their days in the surf. From her first time on a board, Mindy is a natural, but Ginger, two years younger, feels out of place in the water.

As they grow up and their lives diverge, Mindy and Ginger’s relationship ebbs and flows. Mindy finds herself swept up in celebrity, complete with beachside love affairs, parties at the Playboy Club, and a USO tour in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Ginger, desperate for a community of her own, is tugged into the dangerous counterculture of drugs and cults. But through it all, their sense of duty to each other survives, as the girls are forever connected by the emotional damage they carry from their unorthodox childhood.

A gripping, emotional story set at a time when mothers were expected to be Donna Reed, not Gidget, California Golden is an unforgettable novel about three women living in a society that was shifting as tempestuously as the breaking waves.