Susan Carlton’s new novel, Love and Haight, is set in her hometown of San Francisco, against
the waning days of bell- bottoms, bongs and hippies. Love and Haight has been nominated for Best Fiction for Young
Adults (by YALSA) and for the Amelia Bloomer Project (recommended feminist
literature). A long-time magazine editor and writer, Carlton’s work has
appeared in Self, Elle, Mademoiselle and Seventeen, among other publications. She currently lives in
Massachusetts and teaches writing part-time at Boston University. She is proud
to say that her daughters know all the lyrics to Baba O'Riley.
Quirky writing habit:
I do my best writing in the
insomniatic hours of three to five a.m. (not all the time, but when I’m really
stuck on something). The family is asleep, the dog is snoring, and the laptop
beckons. There’s something thrilling about writing when you’re not entirely
awake – weird, hallucinogenic stuff pours out...
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It’s 1971, and seventeen-year-old Chloe and her best friend MJ head to San Francisco to ring in the New Year. But Chloe has an ulterior motive—and a secret. She’s pregnant and has devised a plan not to be. In San Francisco’s flower-power heyday, it was (just about) legal to end her pregnancy.
Website | Facebook | Twitter
It’s 1971, and seventeen-year-old Chloe and her best friend MJ head to San Francisco to ring in the New Year. But Chloe has an ulterior motive—and a secret. She’s pregnant and has devised a plan not to be. In San Francisco’s flower-power heyday, it was (just about) legal to end her pregnancy.
But as soon as the girls cross the Golden Gate, the scheme starts to unravel amid the bellbottoms, love-beads, and bongs. Chloe’s secrets escalate until she betrays everyone she cares about. MJ, who has grave doubts about Chloe’s plan. Her groovy aunt Kiki, who’s offered the girls a place to crash. Her self-absorbed mother meditating back in Phoenix. And maybe, especially, the boy she wishes she’d waited for.