California Street

“If you locked the window, the past crept under the door.”

As Jessica Saxe lies dying in a hospital, the story of the Saxe family — Anchylus, her husband, and Pamela, Alexandra, and Sharon, their three daughters — slowly unfolds, meandering backward and forward in time as the author skillfully merges the memory of the past with the challenges of the present and the reflection that hindsight kindles. While it could be said that this is a rags-to-riches story of a man — irascible, life-loving, and arrogant — who begins at the bottom rung of the San Francisco newspaper publishing business and builds an empire, it is more than that. Sometimes elegant, sometimes gritty, it is the story of an era. It is the story of a family at odds about a family secret and about children finding themselves and challenging the world of their parents. It is about integrity. Firmness under fire. Finding and losing love.  Making mistakes and righting them. Facing the passage of time. And coming to terms in the end. A rich story, richly and powerfully told.