The coming of age of a late bloomer and quiet dreamer set in a small beach town community of southern California during the early 1960s.

Twenty-two-year-old Lorraine is finding it tough-going when she moves to Hollywood. Her Associate of Art’s degree from the local junior college does not help her get a job in the art field. And if that isn’t enough, her longtime boyfriend has broken up with her. The job she does have as a receptionist is also a disaster, so when she comes down with severe laryngitis, she is ready to call it quits. Accepting defeat, she takes the twenty-mile ride back home to Hermosa Beach.

But home isn’t quite the same at 230 Culper Court. In her absence, her mother has moved out to live “in sin” with a used car salesman named Bob. Replacing her at the cottage is Lorraine’s older sister, Arlene, her three kids, and Lorraine’s younger brother, Jeff.

Arlene is an artist—of what kind—singer, musician, actress, dress designer—she is not always sure. She is talented but erratic and seems almost mystified by the fact that she has three small children to raise. Jeff is a budding jazz saxophonist, a shy boy who somehow draws people around him.

Lorraine’s life takes a different turn as she learns to fit in with her newly re-arranged family and all the quirky friends, exotic oddballs, hapless misfits, and other flotsam and jetsam of strange and talented people who pass through the little red cottage by the sea.

An intriguing and often humorous memoir of a unique family influenced by a hard working mother who just missed being a saint and a father, the wild jazz pianist and entertainer known as Harry the Hipster Gibson whose amazing abilities and crazy style influenced the evolution of Rock and Roll.