Overview

50 years ago in a weird little Indiana city... Hop in your DeLorean and visit a time with no internet, no phones, and no existential dread. Your Hoosier homegirl weaves a tale of growing up neuro-spicy and music-obsessed in a unique midsized city on the Ohio River in the 1970s and '80s. From the arrival of her ancestors in the 19th century to her own exodus from Evansville in 1990, come along for a joyride of indelible memories recounted in meticulous detail, drawing from journals, letters, and a wide range of emotionally loaded pop music. Part oral history, part memoir, and part Gen-X manifesto, this collection of life stories shows what it was like to be a brainy, curious, anxious, sensitive, perfectionist, ambitious, boy-crazy girl in a changing world.

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Reviews

""Lori Cates Hand has done what I would have thought was impossible: She's made me nostalgic for people I've never met and places I've never been. I'm betting you'll have a similar reaction. She's also made me nostalgic for a lot of music I haven't heard in years, but that's more understandable."" -Marc Allan, former music critic, Indianapolis Star ""Hand writes with humor, charm, and compassion. Her gorgeous prose drew me back to another time, both in the culture and in my own life. This is personal narrative with style."" -Callie J. Smith, author, the Sacred Grounds novels ""Indiana has produced a long list of acclaimed memoirists: Haven Kimmel, Ashley C. Ford, and Jean Harper come to immediately to mind. Now we can add Lori Cates Hand to that esteemed list. Cates Hand offers an unvarnished look at growing up in Evansville, Indiana, through the eyes of a neurodivergent girl in a time when the world barely knew what neurodivergent was. Told in short snippets revealing family ties and secrets, I was immediately drawn into the world Lori Cates Hand inhabited, and I wanted to go there myself. With this book, I did. Highly recommended for readers who love a distinct voice and heartwarming tales of days gone by too soon."" -Larry D. Sweazy, multiple award-winning author of The Broken Bow

Author Information

Lori Cates Hand has been editing books for more than 30 years and currently manages US English-language adaptations of fiction and four-color nonfiction for a London-based division of a Big 5 publisher. She earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Evansville. In addition to several ghost-writing projects, she has been published in the Gal's Guide 2025 Anthology, the Polk Street Review, and various blogs. Lori volunteers extensively in her community, including as vice chair of a city political committee and board member for the Gal's Guide to the Galaxy women's history library. Her hobbies include gardening, fostering guinea pigs, traveling in Europe, winning at competitive trivia, going to retro Brit-pop concerts, wrangling memes, and getting AquaFit. She and her husband, Jason, have a daughter, Catherine, and a foster son, Jonah, both currently in college.

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