Almost Famous meets Judy Blume in this funny, wise, and tender novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s coming of age in 1970s Baltimore.
In 1970s Baltimore, teenaged Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local Jewish doctor.
The house may look respectable on the outside, but there’s clutter on every surface, Impeachment: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal, and takeout for dinner. And the doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job‚ helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.
Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive in September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.