Cali Sky: The Nowhere Year – An Unforgettably Inspiring Coming-Of-Age Adventure
North Palm Beach, Florida, June 5, 2015 – Provocative and imaginative, Cali Sky: The Nowhere Year is a coming-of-age adventure from Samuel Joeckel, the first in a projected multi-volume series.
When nine-year-old Cali Sky Braithwaite discovers an acoustic guitar mysteriously left in her bedroom closet, the muses descend, possessing her for the next fifteen years, tantalizing her with visions of a musical ideal.
By 1980 disco was dead, punk had reared its pissed-off head, New Wave had washed ashore, and Cali Sky remained oblivious to it all, thanks to her protective parents. Until she meets Brodie, who knocks on her door one day with a self-assured smile and a Pee Chee folder adorned with the handwritten names of the latest countercultural bands. She teaches him how to play guitar, he introduces her to KROQ-FM and the musical underground spreading all around her parents’ southern California home.
Together they explore the possibilities of their instruments and the limits of friendship as they seek inspiration, rooted in Cali Sky’s beauty-pained visions as well as her discoveries of the unexpected intersections between rock and roll and her parents’ hidden past.
Within a framework of Greek and Roman mythology, Joeckel spins a classic rock-and-roll fable. His elaborate writing style complements the tone, sometimes adopting the cynical voice of youth against older generations, other times assuming the voice of adulation, paying homage to music history. The result is an unforgettable story of talent, inspiration and heartbreak.
Samuel Joeckel is a literature professor and amateur musician. He is the author of The C.S. Lewis Phenomenon: Christianity and the Public Sphere and is currently working on the second volume in his new Cali Sky series, entitled Cali Sky: The Blue Flower Years. He resides on the east coast of Florida.
Cali Sky: The Nowhere Year
Samuel Joeckel
