This rich and powerful story tells the stories of several colorful characters in Lake County, California shortly before the start of the Great Depression. With her first novel published at age 90, Taper vividly illuminates the thoughts, feelings, actions and hearts of her characters lives in the summer of 1927 in rural and small town Lake County, California. Most folks struggle for a livelihood in Kelseyville, a tiny farm town where pears and grapes ripen beneath the slopes of Mount Konocti, and everyone readies for the long days of harvest. The young are brash and hopeful of success -- in love, in business -- while their elders wish only for what is reasonably hard won. The promise of the harvest and the hopes of Kelsey Creek's women and men come up hard against the tragic events of this summer. With precise descriptions of smell, sound and sight, Taper brings us into these hot days and nights, rendering the pivotal moments of these lives with grace. This enthralling first novel has already captured the attention of reviewers. Sensual settings and vivid characters . . . a return . . . to her childhood home . . . a homecoming readers can enjoy and won't forget. --San Francisco Chroncile Sunday Book Review, November 28, 2004 Taper expresses the human landscape with the same clarity, frank honesty, and , , , appreciation with which she describes the western panorama. --Professor Robin Mark Freeman Landscape, sounds, the very feel of the air, are captured with a rare brevity and power in this first novel. --Robbie Brandwynne Phyllis Whetstone Taper was born in Santa Paula, California. In 1925 the family moved to the dry climate of a ranch in Lake County for her father's health. There she studied piano with Corabelle Piner, an later at the Cora W. Jenkins music school in Piedmont, both on a work-for-lessons basis. She received a small Lake County scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, where she edited its literary magazine, The Occident, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, graduated with honors in English, and married the editor of the humor magazine, The Pelican. After World War II, her husband's work in the occupation government took them to Berlin and Stuttgardt, where their first child was born. Years in New York City followed. When she was fifty she took a master's degree at Columbia University, and became an instructor at Drew University in New Jersey. When the family returned to Berkeley she joined Bob Gluck's group for older writers in San Francisco and was a member of the David R. Brower, Ronald Dellums Institute for Sustainable Policy Studies at Merritt College in Oakland. Used Book in Good Condition