Barbara Lane February 8, 2021Updated: February 9, 2021, 7:33 am
San Francisco is primed for idyllic love stories, with Technicolor visuals (sparkling bay, impossible hills), heady aromas (fresh-ground coffee wafting out of North Beach cafes, cracked crab at the wharf) and iconic sounds of foghorns and cable car bells.
But we all know the city has a darker side, and all the natural beauty and sensation is no guarantee of living happily ever after. In fact, some are drawn to San Francisco because it’s a place where they can turn their backs on all conventional ideas of how life should be lived.
Such is the case with many of the teenage runaways found in and around Golden Gate Park. My son came of age playing football at Kezar Stadium, and I practiced yoga for many years at a studio on Stanyan Street. So I could say I know the young people of whom Katherine Seligman writes in her new novel, “At the Edge of the Haight.”