Slipsliding by the Bay

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Description

85% of boomers prefer to read fictional characters within a backdrop of historical events, and consider time appropriate mindset, attitudes and morals to be critical.

Slipsliding by the Bay portrays one of the first faculty unionizations by a private California college. Several private national and local colleges are currently considering unionizing.

Slipsliding by the Bay is set in seventies San Francisco and mirrors the changing times with the struggle of a former women-only colleges to survive, student revolts, faculty unionization, and other societal changes.

Boomers like strong female characters

Anecdotal information from City of Larkspur, Marin County, librarian: Satire and humor are in demand. Boomers prefer books with elements of comedy such as Where Did You Go, Bernadette and Roz Chast graphic novels.

Reviews

Independent Publisher, Notable New Indie Book, July 2017 Featured in The Mercury News Books By the Bay round up of new releases "Short chapters and well-crafted dialogue make for a fast-paced story that will be enjoyed by anyone who has spent any time in or near academia. Booklist "A hilarious spoof of academic intrigue, Slipsliding by the Bay mirrors the societal turmoil and follies of the seventies." Independent Publisher, Notable July Indie Book Release "With a sharp eye for detail and a complement of perfectly peculiar characters, Barbara McDonald has devised a wonderful satire of the academic world. Her portrait of a small liberal arts collegeits lecheries and larceniesexactly conjures the atmosphere of that unique modern institution where absurdity and logic are married so closely: the campus." Louis B. Jones, author of Californias Over, Particles and Luck, and Radiance Intriguing. You got me hooked with the moving plot and interesting characters. I was curious to see what mischief Gudewill and Stein would cook up. Magdalena and Lucy continued to surprise. Louis Owens, author of Sharpest Sight and Bone Game Barbara McDonalds Slipsliding by the Bay is an absorbing novel. A comedy both dark and light, it recounts an often wild search for survival of an embattled small college in 1970s San Francisco. The battle is within: a new president recruited to save the college, diverse students, faculty and alums, and most engagingly, a famed artist Sister Magdalena, whose sculptures embody a fierce war against corporate America, notably the colleges chairman of the board. McDonalds gift for lively dialogue carries the college from one crisis to another, the denouement in suspense until the very end. An intriguing read from start to finish. John Boettiger, author of A Love in the Shadows I am always cautious when approaching a novel written by a published poet but Barbara McDonald made reading Slipsliding by the Bay easy for me. Enticing and entertaining, I read it with mounting pleasure. Chester Aaron, author of About Us

Author Bio

A lifelong writer, Barbara McDonald has had poetry published in anthologies and magazines and spent several summers at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, where she worked on Slipsliding by the Bay. She held various positions at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco before it closed: adjunct faculty, director of institutional service, editor and writer, and alumni director. After being a stringer for local papers and managing editor of a magazine, she worked at Dominican University as director of facilities. North American Review commissioned her to write an article on Lone Mountain, its progression and demise.