Coming Of Age With Mary Jane

By Sheilah Kast,

Melissa Gerr

Published August 24, 2021 at 10:53 AM EDT

As Jessica Anya Blau’s latest novel starts, Mary Jane has just turned 14. She’s starting a summer job as a nanny of an endearing five-year-old, just a short walk from her own traditional home in Baltimore’s Roland Park. Mary Jane’s conservative parents think it’s great their daughter will be working for a doctor. They don’t yet know he’s a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer schedule to treat a recovering drug addict who’s a rock star … and whose movie-star wife will also spend the summer:

“Mary Jane suddenly enters this world of chaos, confusion, rock and roll, group therapy, sex … everything is happening in this house. And it kind of changes her life.”

Coming of age .. in Roland Park … in 1975.

Links: Ivy Bookshop live music, LP exchange and reading eventon Aug. 27, 2021 at 7pm.

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Sheilah Kast

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.

See stories by Sheilah Kast

Melissa Gerr

Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'

See stories by Melissa Gerr