A close friend loaned this book to me with a once-removed recommendation (he hasn't read it), and despite some initial hesitation, I finished it in about a week.



The story demands attention like exposed cults, drunk teenagers with firearms, the spectacular failure of celebrity marriages... and more! For example, on page 54 Sean explains, offhand, that while still dating his mother, "Dad had not not only been dating Dede Traina [his mother's best friend and father's future wife] and Danielle Steele, but also Dinah Shore, at the same time"



Sean takes us on a frank, privileged, often unpleasant, but delightfully written and often hilarious adventure of his early life. The ridiculous extravagance around him calls into sharp relief the basics (like parents) he lacks, and starkly clarifies their relative importance.



Otherwise, as a resident of San Francisco over the last decade+, Sean's 1980's high-society experience in SF intrigues me both for its own sake, and in contrast to my own and more or less a-societal youth in 1980's Los Angeles.