An extraordinary young writer's search for authenticity among the various communities of identity-black, Latino, techno-utopian, Ivy League, activist-competing for her allegiance, each with its distinct allures and perils. California saved Caille Millner's parents, or at least saved them from lives of poverty and oppression as black Americans growing up in racially benighted backwaters. It provided them with a free education and opportunities for advancement into the solid middle class and even beyond. But it did its damage too, and to the young Caille Millner as well, growing up in a Latino neighborhood in San Jose, relocating to more affluent but quietly hostile white-bread Silicon Valley suburbs being transformed out of all recognition by boom times, and then fleeing to a succession of utopian communities that in the end proved to be no less messy than the places she left behind. The Golden Road is Caille Millner's frankly wonderful memoir of coming of age in a world in which the need for a stable identity and the need to embrace radical change all too often collide, with consequences at times hilarious and at times devastating.
