Tales of an Inland Empire Girl - Paperback

by Juanita E. Mantz (Author)

The second edition of Tales of an Inland Empire Girl tells the story of a blue-collar family who lives in the Inland Empire. John, the Cowboy white father, loves his children but drinks too much and is always chasing windmills while Judy, a Mexican mother working two jobs, struggles to lend stability and oscillates between love and anger, and their three children who try their best to survive day by day.

In the beginning, it is the story of Jenny, her barely-younger twin sister Jackie, and their baby sister Annie, as they struggle to navigate the tides of their parents' troubles asea. As the years go on, and the chaos increases, the story zooms in on the growing storms, and ultimately on Jenny, as she struggles to manage and descends from stellar, book obsessed student to an angry and self-destructive punk rock girl.

It's the story of a girl and a family hitting rock-bottom, but surviving it. It's a tale of redemption about a father, who in spite of it all is still loved fiercely by his children, and of a hardworking and ambitious mother who, against all odds, keeps the family together and manages to instill in Jenny a love for literature at an early age. Ultimately, it is the story of how Jenny redeems herself and somehow, manages to pick herself up, piece by piece, and slowly starts to put her life back together again.