‘Thousand Steps’ steps back to ’60s counterculture
Set in 1968 Laguna Beach, California, T. Jefferson Parker’s gripping new novel, “A Thousand Steps” (Forge, 368 pp., ★★★★), opens ominously with the body of a local high school girl who disappeared two months earlier washing ashore.
Bicycling up Pacific Coastal Highway, 16year-old paperboy Matt Anthony races to the flashing cop lights where he sees his first dead body, not at all suspecting that this disturbing moment would be the first of many in the traumatic and dangerous days ahead.
Soon after, Matt’s 18-year-old sister, Jasmine (aka Jazz), a too-cool-forschool free-thinker he adores, vanishes while out celebrating her high school graduation. The police write her off as just another runaway hippie girl. And that begins the novel’s irresistible pageturning chronicle of Matt’s relentless, obsessive search of Laguna Beach’s neighborhoods, legendary psychedelic and spiritual hot spots, and freaky characters as he tries to rescue his abducted sister.
Southern California native Parker’s creds include three Edgar Award prizes and 26 novels, most recent among them “Then She Vanished” (2020) and “The Last Good Guy” (2019). He knows Laguna Beach personally: He lived there as a teenager about Matt’s age in 1968.
Parker’s writerly turf is sunny SoCal suspense tales – stories about someone searching for someone who’s missing. In “A Thousand Steps,” he eases off hardboiled investigative procedure to shape his protagonist as a smart, curious, self-sufficient, determined and totally likable teen who loves nothing better than fishing, painting art, delivering newspapers, pursuing his first-kiss girlfriend and scoring food (Matt’s always hungry).
Meanwhile, Matt’s family life is a mess. His mom is wayward hippie addicted to opium-laced hash and can’t make rent with her waitressing job. His right-wing, occasional-cop dad hates liberal Laguna and abandoned the family years earlier. His brother Kyle is hoping to survive the finals days of his tour in Vietnam. And his sister Jazz, well ...
Parker masterfully transports readers to the late ’60s, accurately detailing daily life during those tumultuous times when anti-Vietnam War protests compounded with peace-and-love counterculture mushroomed into a society shifting movement whose mantra was sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.
In Laguna, that meant the scent of patchouli and weed; the T-Street Surf Boys; Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, and Dylan on the radio; LSD disciple Timothy Leary preaching higher consciousness at the Mystic Arts World art gallery; the Brotherhood of Eternal Love trading in Jesus, Buddha and illegal drugs; and spiritual centers like the fictional Vortex of Purity luring seekers of enlightenment.
The novel’s title refers to the Ninth Avenue descent to Laguna’s 1,000 Steps Beach, but more so to Matt’s headstrong, frustrating search for his sister, which takes him door to door to every address in town.
This twisty tale of a teen’s desperate plan to save his sister and right his offkeel family is a compelling coming-ofage thriller that will entrance you with its ’60s vibe and backdrop and captivate you with its engaging storytelling and a believable cast of characters – including one heroic kid you can’t help but root for.