Look at Flower

March 7, 2011
Going through their mother's belongings after her death, Peter and Cecily discover a manuscript that turns out to be a memoir of her experiences during the Summer of Love. It's the story of a girl who calls herself Flower, who leaves her small farm town for San Francisco, hangs out with the Grateful Dead, joins a commune, works with "revolutionary" groups, rides the rails, visits a lumberjack camp, and so on, providing a look at the groovy ‘60s through the eyes of a young innocent who has immerses herself in the hippie experience. With his latest, Dunn (Pink Cadillac) has made the time-honored but unfortunate choice of letting a "found manuscript" tell his tale. Whereas Samuel Beckett used the form to create brilliance (Malloy), Dunn can't get beyond Flower's nostalgic, grating voice: "I'm also sort of wondering why I'm out here on this farm...though it's groovy enough and I'm not really too freaked." While the reader grows accustomed to the voice, Flower's journey is less interesting than it should be and says nothing new about the era; strip out the Grateful Dead, Beatles, and Haight-Ashbury references, and this story could take place today.