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“The Precipice Dweller” is an off kilter valentine to imperfect families from an era before “family
values”. A time when us kids played our games quietly while the adults reveled in theirs; lulled to sleep way past bedtime
by the comforting sounds of Bics being flicked, divorcee laughter and ice tinkling in a vodka tonic. A crazier era when finding
a naked Polaroid of your neighbor was commonplace, and “playing Barbies” meant making a Play-Doh penis for Ken.
A memoir about learning to appreciate the view from the edge instead of the center, this family circles the cusp of success
but never quite achieves it. Whether success means trying to raise a baby deer in the living room or making a fortune on a
three-legged pantyhose racket.
In a series of interlinked vignettes, “The Precipice Dweller” spans 25 years from seedy Honolulu discos to questionable
hot tubs in Beverly Hills to a hippie community in the Pacific Northwest. Slippery fortune disappears when no one is looking,
and the rise of HMO’s usher the alcoholic fall of my dad, a Canadian doctor who still went on house calls, roaring down
dusty back roads in a Chevy, accepting fresh salmon as payment when patients couldn’t afford his fees.
It’s a family album about divorce and reconciliation and my mother, a Finnish immigrant who left her country in 1965
with 217 bucks in her pocket, speaking three words of English. Looking for glamour and fun, she tried not to fall into the
trap her mother did, only to find herself repeating the cycle, updated with a disco beat.
But at it’s heart, this is my first-generation American’s journey; from looking for quarters that the tooth fairy
never left behind to finally embracing Precipice Dweller status.
For more information or a sample chapter of "The Precipice Dweller" please contact me:
SAARA DUTTON
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