Blue Sky Dream: A Memoir of America's Fall from Grace

In this affecting memoir of his childhood in a "blue sky" family--the aerospace community of California, specifically those working for Lockheed--David Beers mourns the passing of an era of limitless possibility and exploding prosperity. Combining poignant family reminiscence, interviews, and brief essays on culture and technology, this book paints a convincing and elegiac portrait of life in 1950s and 1960s America. Beers's father, Hal, a former aviator turned Lockheed engineer, is at the center of the book, and the author's deep ambivalence toward him mirrors his ambivalence toward the values surrounding his "blue sky" upbringing.