Product Description

When Chelsea Cain discovered that her mother was suffering from cancer, she was inspired to go on a road journey from Oregon, back to Iowa and the hippie commune where she spent her childhood. This book charts the journey and Cain's travels through two generations as she aims to reclaim the past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #940109 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 180 pages

Amazon.com Review
This memoir by 24-year-old Chelsea Cain, who grew up on a commune in the Iowa outback, recounts her nostalgia for her toddler years, when her parents picked berries, puffed pot, and plucked the banjo while the outside world seemed to be going straight to hell. Deciding that her caffeinated modern life is a vile repudiation of her parents' admirable values--and shaken by her mother's bout with cancer--the author leaves southern California for Iowa. Not to establish or join a commune but to rent an Iowa City apartment and begin graduate school at the University of Iowa, as we learn from her biography. Along the road to Iowa, there are plenty of wry observations on the modern world and reflections on the more idealized values of "the hippie movement." The sanest characters in this brief book are Cain's clear-eyed and chastened parents.

From Publishers Weekly
When Cain, a 24-year-old student at UCLA, learned that her mother had developed cancer, the stucco walls of her prefab college house didn't seem enough to keep her body and soul together. She recalls a simpler time when, with the '60s raging in the background, she and her parents (now separated) lived on an Iowa commune. For Cain, getting back to her roots, and finding the elusive "Snowqueen"?an imaginary figure her mother told her about years before?was of paramount importance. And so off they went, mother and daughter, down the highways of the Northwest and Midwest, back to Iowa to see what they could find. The family history is fascinating, as are the descriptions of commune life, replete with home gardening, odd jobs and fear of the draft. The story of life on the road is neither Kerouac nor Thelma and Louise, but is a pleasant enough roll. Author Cain is her mother's daughter, so there's little generational conflict here. Get on board if you like pursuing nostalgia rather than forging ahead in the present. Cain would argue that she could not go forward without going back, and that's good enough reason for a road trip.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In her first book, promising author Cain sets out on a journey to recapture her lost self, last seen in an idyllic childhood on an Iowa communal farm. She revives the expectations she once had at age 24, when she was called Snowbird, and the memory of her mother, the Snowqueen. Cain's preoccupation with her not-so-distant past seems shallow and self-preserving, however, in comparison with her mother's illness. The Snowqueen has had surgery for melanoma; at the end of the book, we learn her cancer has metastasized. Cain attempts to re-create the hippie days of her parents, but the results are without substance. More appealing are her own memories of childhood?the porch light she takes for the sun shining into her room in the middle of the night, gifts from the Snowqueen, and a special friendship with the commune's odd man out. Cain describes her quest as the journey of a "psychonaut"; it's unfortunate that her road from California to Oregon to Iowa offers so little.?Janet Ross, Sparks Branch Lib., Nev.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

dissolving the generation gap
This is a very moving account of a young girl who feels the need to reconnect with her roots. Cain was raised on a hippie commune in Iowa but as a college student in California feels estranged from her background. This spurs a decision to move back to Iowa to rediscover the little girl she was. It's a simple enough premise but it is very well written. Her mother's bout with melanoma is the impetus for the journey. Then there is the search for a former friend thought to be dead which adds texture to the tale. The road trip is a great American motif and Cain handles it in her own unique circumstances. This is a tale about self-rediscovery as Cain attempts to bridge a hippie past with the current gen X values. It is cliché at times but very personal and honest. There is a lot of universal soil in this book. It can be appreciated by anyone who enjoys an honest account of dealing with illness and loss of innocence.

a quick read; worth the paper it's printed on
In Dharma Girl, Chelsea Cain is trying to appeal both to the Gen X reader who is searching for some meaning in her life and to the aging hippie, nostalgic for life on the commune and hoping that it all made a difference somehow. The book is a quick read which I really did enjoy, even though I do not fit into either of the two categories above. The most engaging aspect of the book is the tension over whether she will be able to locate one of the commune members with whom she had a special friendship

A Gen-X Girl Raised by a Hippie Mother
Chelsea Cain is a gen-x girl with gen-x values. As a young woman she seeks to understand her place in the world.

Raised by parents with a 1960's commitment to political liberalism and a hippie lifestyle, McCain wants to get a deeper understanding of her roots. To accomplish this, she travels back to Iowa with her mother. Iowa is where she spent her youth on a communal farm.

The story is especially poignant because her mother is ill with melanoma (a serious form of cancer).

The immediacy of her mother's melanoma and Chelsea's desire to understand her roots create an interesting and well-written memoir.