"I LOVED this novel....If
you have ever sung along to a hit on the radio, in any decade, then you
will devour Mary Jane at 45 rpm." —Nick Hornby
Almost Famous meets Daisy Jones & The Six in
this funny, wise, and tender novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s
coming of age in 1970s Baltimore, caught between her straight-laced
family and the progressive family she nannies for—who happen to be
secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the
summer.
In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old 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 doctor. A respectable job, Mary
Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.
The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, Impeachment: Now More Than Ever
bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even
more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not):
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.
Over the
course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply
ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat
to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (not to mention
group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the
future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at
September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what
kind of person she’s going to be.