When his wife died, Teddy Oliver inherited a fortune and a family-three teenage daughters as eccentric as money, a doting father, and living on the San Francisco Peninsula could make them. The story bisects the mythological subculture of California-a mix of studied freedom of ideas, dress, "lifestyle," and sex. ." Patricia Zelver's humor is like a kitten hiding behind the sofa waiting to dart out and take a couple of slaps and dash back in. Her stories make me do what I practically never do, laugh out loud (what's to laugh at most of the time?)."-Wallace Stegner

The three girls were a tight trio-known as The Honey Bunch when they were in high school-never again allowed to be free from their mystique. Through the years-marriage, divorce, adultery and religious conversion, they were always The Honey Bunch.

.,."Patricia Zelver's humor is like a kitten hiding behind the sofa waiting to dart out and take a couple of slaps and dash back in. Her stories make me do what I practically never do, laugh out loud (what's to laugh at most of the time?)."-Wallace Stegner

." Patricia Zelver's humor is like a kitten hiding behind the sofa waiting to dart out and take a couple of slaps and dash back in. Her stories make me do what I practically never do, laugh out loud (What's to laugh at most of the time?)." -Wallace Stegner The stories in "A Man of Middle Age" are all distinctive, befitting a five-time winner of O. Henry Prize Story Awards. "Patricia Zelver created Same Winkle, a man of middle age, with style and masterful economy in the title novella. It is a minor classic." -"San Francisco Chronicle"