Yesterday's Spring

About the Book

YESTERDAY’S SPRING is the telling of two disparate love affairs while chronicling the interlocking of the lives of two men and a woman during that half-dozen or so years that was the life span of the big band craze and a form of jazz called swing; that impoverished time just before and during World War II of crew-cuts, bobby soxers, ballrooms, hotel dancing, after-hour jam sessions, radio-remotes, convertibles, jitterbugs and the Selective Service Training and Service Act of 1940 . . . Though not a story about swing music or the big bands per se, the music and bands do play a large part (acting as a backdrop and pivot around which the story revolves). YESTERDAY’S SPRING is not another spin down nostalgia lane, not a valentine; but a sometimes erotic, hard-hitting, no-punches-pulled look at the way it really was right up to its explosive climax within the fiery confines of Boston’s ill-fated Cocoanut Grove.

About the Author

Alan Marston’s life has been a diverse one: Born into a Boston first family in Lowell Massachusetts where his grandfather owned woolen mills, he was educated in Boston public and private schools. His first job was as a publicist for the RKO Theaters in New England and writing jazz articles for Boston newspapers during the swing craze. A season in summer stock at Kennebunkport’s Garrick Playhouse led to an MGM actors contract. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942, returning to Hollywood and films when the war was over. His years as an actor and writer in films were chronicled in a series of feature stories for the Los Angeles Sunday Times, “Bing and the Boys at the Creation,” “That’s What We Like ‘Bout Phil Harris,” “The Swing Era, Present At The Creation,” Marie Bryant, She Jumped For Joy” and “Alice Faye: Doing Things Her Own Way.” Currently a free lance writer. He lives in Palm Springs.