'Fairyland is daughter's compassionate, clear-eyed reckoning with truths that defined her singular girlhood at the dawn of the gay liberation movement.' - Alexandra Styron - New York Times Book Review Publisher: WW Norton & Co ISBN: 9780393082524 Number of pages: 352 Weight: 441 g Dimensions: 218 x 150 x 30 mm MEDIA REVIEWS Reconstructing their life together from a remarkable cache of her father's journals, letters, and writings, Alysia Abbott gives us an unforgettable portrait of a tumultuous, historic time in San Francisco as well as an exquisitely moving account of a father's legacy and a daughter's love. Alysia must choose whether to take on the responsibility of caring for her father or continue the independent life she has worked so hard to create. While Alysia is studying in New York and then in France, her father tells her it's time to come home he's sick with AIDS. In Alysia's teens, Steve's friends-several of whom she has befriended-fall ill as AIDS starts its rampage through their community. The world, she learns, is hostile to difference. As a child Alysia views her father as a loving playmate who can transform the ordinary into magic, but as she gets older Alysia wants more than anything to fit in. But the pair live like nomads, moving from apartment to apartment, with a revolving cast of roommates and little structure. He takes Alysia to raucous parties, pushes her in front of the microphone at poetry readings, and introduces her to a world of artists, thinkers, and writers. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation-few of whom are raising a child. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco.

Fairyland by Alysia Abbott