Tubes, by Penny Skillman

Herein is a recipe for communal living, or a cautionary tale of family duty, or a humorous delineation of urban life, or a simple quirky entertainment, one that’s accessible and easy to read.

Family power plays, angst, Elvis, and political activism all play a part in this memoir of two generations of women whose lives are branded by America’s defining generational events of World War II, and the 60’s evolutionary zeitgeist. This is a story of last effects, an homage to America’s great messy forward-looking hurricane of pragmatic social progress.

TUBES is a streamlined literary equation that demonstrates the bad, the good, and the daunting nature of human ambition and desire. The prose is generous and simultaneously sparse, with a flavor of cool jazz, baby Zen, and philosophical drop-offs. Whether traveling in-country in Florida or San Francisco, or tumbling through the chronosphere, in TUBES you’ll find something to pique your interest.