Customer Reviews

Sunshine Years

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Fans of Norma Klein's book "Sunshine" and the TV movie of the same name will remember that Cliff De Young from the movie also starred in a TV series for a couple of years in the late 70s, about raising his little daughter Jill as a single father after his wife, Kate, dies at age 20 from cancer. The TV series, which I used to watch regularly at about age 12, focused on Sam's adventures as a struggling folk-rock musician with his bandmates Weaver and Givits, and their friend Nora who helps look after Jill and occasionally dates Sam. "The Sunshine Years" are a group of short stories by Norma Klein that tell stories which I mostly remember as being the subject of episodes of the TV show, so I think it was written in conjunction with the TV show.

Sam is always short on money and struggling to pay for basics like motorcycle repairs, medical care, and gas to make it to the next band gig, but he and Jill and his friends have a lot of love and humor to get them through tough times. Sam also has an eye for pretty ladies, especially since Nora doesn't really want to be tied down in a relationship, so many of the stories focus on Sam trying to balance his love life with his fatherly responsibilities. These are sweet, believable and funny stories but because Kate is dead, they're all told in the third person from Sam's perspective, and Kate doesn't come up very much. So if you were mostly a fan of Kate's narration in the original "Sunshine," or if you find it hard to deal with Sam moving on with his life beyond the relationship, this book might not appeal to you.

Also, the sexual mores in the book definitely reflect the thinking of the hippie free-love generation. Sam is often trying to get women he likes to commit but they don't want to be tied down and in some cases even want to have more than one boyfriend at a time. This is very realistic of young people's behavior and especially in the 70s time frame of the book, but because people today seem to be more interested in a commitment and concerned about "cheating", the stories come off a little bit dated.