Cyra McFadden (December 2, 1937 – April 20, 2024) was an American author, who lived on a houseboat in

Sausalito, California Sausalito ( Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, and about north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. Sausalito's ...

.The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin Mounty Paperback – 11 Apr 2016
Retrieved 2016-12-17. McFadden's 1977 novel '' The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County'' satirized the trendy lifestyles of the affluent residents of

Marin County, California Marin County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat a ...

, just north of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. The book was made into a 1980 movie called '' Serial'', starring

Tuesday Weld Tuesday Weld (born Susan Ker Weld; August 27, 1943) is a retired American actress. She began acting as a child and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award, Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcome ...

and

Martin Mull Martin Eugene Mull (, August 18, 1943 – June 27, 2024) was an American actor, musician, and painter. He became known on '' Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,'' its spin-off '' Fernwood 2 Night,'' and '' America 2 Night.'' Other notable roles included ...

. In 1986, McFadden wrote a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

entitled ''Rain or Shine: A Family Memoir'', in which she described her childhood growing up as the daughter of James C. "Cy" Taillon, a well-known rodeo announcer. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer that year. After being out of print for several years, ''Rain or Shine'' was reprinted in 1998. McFadden wrote a biweekly column for the ''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and has been published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst and the flagship of the He ...

'' for six years, mostly in the 1980s, and was also a features writer for that daily newspaper. She was born in

Great Falls, Montana Great Falls is the List of cities and towns in Montana, third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County, Montana, Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 United States census, 2 ...

, and spent much of her childhood traveling with her parents on the rodeo circuit and living in

Missoula, Montana Missoula ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, United States. It is located along the Clark Fork River near its confluence with the Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers in western Montana and at the convergence of five ...

References

1937 births 2024 deaths 20th-century American novelists American columnists 20th-century American memoirists American women novelists American satirists American women satirists American satirical novelists Writers from Montana San Francisco Examiner people People from Sausalito, California Writers from Marin County, California American women memoirists American women columnists 20th-century American women writers Journalists from Montana People from Great Falls, Montana People from Missoula, Montana Novelists from California 21st-century American women {{US-novelist-1930s-stub