jeff munnis

In March of 1967 a young man named Timmy leaves home at the age of fifteen to make room for the arrival of his sister’s baby. His journey takes him just a few blocks down the street, but his life changes dramatically. He goes to work for a man named Morgan, the new owner of the Orange & Blue Drive-In, and he meets Penney, Morgan’s thirty-year-old daughter. Rundi, a Muslim immigrant from India rents him a small room in the back of his antique store. Timmy’s childhood and friends cling to him, but a different world pulls him forward into new relationships, relationships that have startling consequences. Everything happens against the background of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles, riots in Detroit, the poverty of Timmy’s east Gainesville neighborhood, and a rapidly changing world.

“The Orange & Blue Drive-In touches on a lot of big issues—class and coming of age and small town America in the 60s—with care and sophistication. It is beautifully written with a strong yet quiet line.” —Juliana Spahr, winner of the Hardison Poetry Prize, and author of eight volumes of poetry, including: Response (Sun & Moon Press, 1996), Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You (Wesleyan University Press, 2001), and Well Then There Now (Black Sparrow Press, 2011)