The Journey Begins

About the Book

This story of a pubescent girl happens in 1926, the age of prohibition, high hemlines and high expectations, when a family drives round-trip from California to Minnesota.

In addition to her humorous narration Marion Miller tells her tale in a report for her eighth grade history class and a diary where she records her dreams, doubts and desires. She searches for fact and lives in fantasy. Her guiding light is Mom, a woman of independence and initiative, who, in spite of her religious and Victorian perspectives responds scientifically to Marion’s fact-finding missions concerning sexuality and reproduction.

Other characters are Dad, an “A-one salesman”, honest and gregarious, with a taste for bourbon; Cooper, the family boarder, who is helping finance the trip, a sister Maxine, ten, and a brother Buddy, almost six. Also there are friends and relatives the family visits along the way, including Marion’s first love, the son of Mom’s bosom friend in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

About the Author

Elaine Swain, a California native reared in Los Angeles county, has lived most of her life in Napa Valley. She is a retired high school teacher who has also worked as a newspaper reporter and radio interviewer. She has written and directed two children’s plays, “A Sleeping Beauty” and “The Frog Prince,” a historical Pageant “Flags over Sonoma,” and since retirement created and toured in a one-woman-show taken from Jessamyn West’s popular autobiographies. Currently she edits the poetry and short story section of Napa Valley Art Council publication “Art Scan”, conducts poetry readings, and teaches Haiku workshops. She has published poetry and short-short fiction; and a collection of her metaphysical poetry, “Shadows of Thought”, is in a second edition.