“Life’s
Big Zoo” started off as a memoir and, like most memoirs, quickly turned into a
fictional catcher in the rye bread, Jewish with an emphasis on “-ish” coming of
age story set in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, summer of ‘68 housed in an eclectic
family with a refugee father, missing-in-action mother, wannabe rock star
brother, wise and feisty Holocaust-surviving granny, and a suspected Nazi
neighbor on a street named Wonderland that winds slightly to the left of the
galactic center of the folk rock universe.
The
story of a precocious kid growing up between the shadow of the holocaust and
the bright lights of the sixties is heavily influenced by my own experience
coming of age in Los Angeles on the fringes the sixties.
Being
raised Jewish in a tumultuous era contributed to my perspective and isolation. My
dad wouldn’t let me join the Boy Scouts because the uniforms reminded him of the
Hitler Youth of his traumatic childhood in Nazi Germany. I don’t remember not
knowing about the Holocaust that my father and his parents escaped just in
time. Most of their extended family weren’t so lucky. Growing up with this history meant being an
outsider in mainstream America.
But
in the sixties, outsiders were everywhere. The sixties were a time for seeking
meaning and searching outside one’s faith or tribe of origin for universal
truths. I was very aware of this, even as a kid. 1968 was a year that still
looms larger than life. Rigged elections, assassinations, wars, riots,
rock and roll.
I set the story in Laurel Canyon because I grew up nearby, though
I was too young to fully participate. The Canyon was home to Joni Mitchell, CSNY,
The Doors, and everyone in between (including The Monkees, my favorite band at
the time). Laurel Canyon was an artistic
and cultural nexus like Paris between the world wars or Woodstock, NY on the
other side of the country. “Colorful” would be an understatement.
But
color is the flip side of darkness and I saw plenty of both. Like Max Strauss,
my young protagonist, I saw the sixties unfolding from the window of the Los
Angeles city bus I rode across town to my “special” elementary school. I
listened to KHJ (“Boss Radio for Boss
Angeles!”) and Wolfman Jack on my transistor radio, graduated to FM,
dreamed of starting a garage band, and was scared by the nightly news.
I figured
that if the H-bomb didn’t get me, the war would. Few of my classmates expected
to live past the age of thirty and some didn’t. In the book, Max’s musician
brother, the draft-age, poor student Tommy, brings the specter of Vietnam, the
spirit of rebellion and the dream of love, peace, and music. In the sixties and
early seventies, lots of our big brothers went off to war or took to the streets
to fight against it.
Early readers
love the feisty Nana character who survived Dachau and refuses to let history
repeat. While humor permeates the entire story, there’s also increasing gravitas
as Max and Nana tries to resolve and unfinished family mystery in Germany.
We’d all like to think of ourselves as heroes, but history suggests
that most of us would remain silent if threatened. In “Life’s Big Zoo” I suggest
that heroism wears many faces and has no age limit.I’m hoping that baby boomers will find some universal truths and
that younger readers will learn something about their parents (and grandparents!)
in seeing the kaleidoscopic world of 1968 through the eyes of a twelve year-old
mensch.
Among the many wise things my
grandmother told me one that rings true time and again is that God keeps a big
zoo. In the summer of 1968 I joined the menagerie.
I hope you enjoy the ride.
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| Country Store Mural (Image courtesy of Spike Stewart) |
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