Twenty-year old Mary Anne Reynolds lives in Pacific Park, California, and is looking for love. The time is 1953. Seeking a ''giant'' of a man to make her life right, Mary has brief affairs with a black blues singer and the middle-aged owner of a classical music record store. Mary knows that she ''wants out'' of Pacific Park, but she doesn't know much more. This slice-of-life novel, a classic tale of 1950s frustration, has considerable literary merit both for characterization and the vividness of its setting. A well-drawn, sympathetic character, Mary is something of a forerunner of the liberated Sixties woman. Written 30-odd years ago when the late science fiction great was still in his 20s, this mainstream novel is being published for the first time in its entirety. Even now, it has a strong sense of relevancy and deserves a wide readership
