A Safe and Happy Place: A Novel

“In the fall of 1967, a schlemiel named Don Bessemer from Short Pump, Virginia, got me pregnant. Well, okay, I got myself pregnant with his assistance. I fell for this superficial clod one rainy October afternoon when we were the only two patrons in a hole-in-the-wall called Café Ludovico off Astor Place. . . .” So begins the journey into adulthood of 19-year-old Erica “Pooh” (as in Winnie the) Bollinger from Oyster Bay, Long Island. She’s a sophomore at NYU and nothing is working out there. She’s knocked up. She hates the city. The Vietnam War is making America crazy, not to mention the sit-com looniness of everyday existence on the home-front. Pooh desperately wants out. She hears about a magical place up in Vermont where you can leave all this crap behind, a commune called Sunrise Village founded by the mysterious, charismatic figure known in the hippie underground only as “Songbird.” Maybe she ought to go up there and check the situation out. . . .