Dharma Girl: A Road Trip Across the American Generations

This memoir by 24-year-old Chelsea Cain, who grew up on a commune in the Iowa outback, recounts her nostalgia for her toddler years, when her parents picked berries, puffed pot, and plucked the banjo while the outside world seemed to be going straight to hell. Deciding that her caffeinated modern life is a vile repudiation of her parents' admirable values--and shaken by her mother's bout with cancer--the author leaves southern California for Iowa. Not to establish or join a commune but to rent an Iowa City apartment and begin graduate school at the University of Iowa, as we learn from her biography. Along the road to Iowa, there are plenty of wry observations on the modern world and reflections on the more idealized values of "the hippie movement." The sanest characters in this brief book are Cain's clear-eyed and chastened parents.