A beautiful, vibrant
memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and ’80s San Francisco with an
openly gay father.
After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and
activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco.
There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in
search of liberation—few of whom are raising a child.
Steve throws himself into San Francisco’s vibrant cultural
scene. He takes Alysia to raucous parties, pushes her in front of the
microphone at poetry readings, and introduces her to a world of artists,
thinkers, and writers. But the pair live like nomads, moving from apartment to
apartment, with a revolving cast of roommates and little structure. As a child
Alysia views her father as a loving playmate who can transform the ordinary
into magic, but as she gets older Alysia wants more than anything to fit in.
The world, she learns, is hostile to difference.
In Alysia’s teens, Steve’s friends—several of whom she has
befriended—fall ill as AIDS starts its rampage through their community. While
Alysia is studying in New York and then in France, her father tells her it’s
time to come home; he’s sick with AIDS. Alysia must choose whether to take on
the responsibility of caring for her father or continue the independent life
she has worked so hard to create.
Reconstructing their life together from a remarkable cache of
her father’s journals, letters, and writings, Alysia Abbott gives us an
unforgettable portrait of a tumultuous, historic time in San Francisco as well
as an exquisitely moving account of a father’s legacy and a daughter’s love.
10 illustrations
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