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READERS ARE SAYING:
"Great
fun!"
"...a
skillful blend of history and the author's interesting childhood journey."
"...the
artist shows through in the writing. Spetz truly
paints with words."
"Hilarious!"
"Sweet."
"Clever."
"Searching
for Alpha Centauri puts
the fun in dysFUNctional!"
"Colorful."
"I
couldn't put it down....always wondering what was
coming next."
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Searching
for Alpha Centauri
in a '64 Chevy is American Public Television artist Gary Spetz's
absorbing tale
of living a nomadic life with an impetuous mother, a discontent casino-security-guard step-father,
a kid-indifferent French poodle, and two older,
all-too-often unpleasant, siblings—during the turbulent early 1960s.
The artist/author paints his
experience with both humor and sensitivity, adeptly portraying his ever moving landscape. Effectively
blended into Searching for Alpha Centauri in a '64
Chevy's backdrop is the author’s keen attention to
the world events unfolding around him. These were the days of an impending nuclear war, an exciting new space race, an escalating conflict in Vietnam, a rising civil rights movement, the invasion of Beatlemania, and the shocking assassination of a President.
To the the author, this mix of colorful and dark days was, indeed,
"the best of times" and "the worst of times.”
Searching for Alpha Centauri in a '64 Chevy, though often hilarious,
is a beautifully rendered
story of innocence, edification, intrigue, adventure, and
endurance.
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“In my laddybuck years, I was
enamored with the Lost in Space television series.
You don’t remember it? Well, it only ran for three years in
the mid-60s, so even if you had been born by that time, it
was still pretty easy to overlook. Yet, I did not miss a
single episode nor a single scene in an episode. So
fanatical was I, that if any family member interfered with
or merely suggested scheduling something against an episode
of Lost in Space, I would
 become
unglued — nothing short of demonic. This was the
pre-TV-recorder era, you realize. If you didn’t watch it
live, you didn’t watch it.
This
futuristic tale of a wandering space family resonated with
me. Well, that and… er, I had a crush on the blonde space
girl, Judy. Nevertheless, the Robinsons were always trying
to find their way to a particular habitable planet that
orbited our nearest star(s), Alpha Centauri. They sought a
new life and, consequently, pinned all of their hopes on a
faraway twinkling light. But they never managed to reach
their destination. Instead, they “spun their astral wheels”
and bounced haplessly from wrong planet to wrong
planet–“lost,” as the series’ title suggests.
In
hindsight, I came to realize that this TV program was a
metaphor for my own nomadic youth. The biggest difference
was that my family was not cohesive like the close-knit
Robinsons — not even close. That, and, of course, we
substituted a boxy, beige ’64 Chevy for the Robinson’s
sleek, saucer-shaped spaceship.”
GS |
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SEARCHING
FOR ALPHA CENTAURI IN A '64 CHEVY
AMAZON BEST SELLER
January
2017
BEAT OUT BY PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR, TIMOTHY EGAN
(Ah
... Pulitzer-Smulitzer!) |
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SEARCHING
FOR ALPHA CENTAURI IN A '64 CHEVY
(formerly titled Easy Hearts)
#1 AMAZON BEST SELLER
OUTSELLS HEMINGWAY ON
RELEASE DAY!
(Okay, it
was Mariel Hemingway's Memoir, not Ernest's, but that still counts
doesn't it???) |
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SEARCHING
FOR ALPHA CENTAURI IN A '64 CHEVY
(formerly titled Easy Hearts)
#1 AMAZON BEST SELLER
AGAIN IN
AUGUST 2016! |
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GOODREADS
STAR RATING: 4.2
(not
too bad coming from this group of serious, highly critical
readers) |
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® Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved Sky
Pond Press
PO Box 374, Lakeside, MT 59922
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