Playback

By Carla Malden

Witty, touching, and insightful, Playback revisits the 17-year-old Mari Caldwell of Shine Until Tomorrow, now 34, to tell the story of a woman obsessed with the past who must risk the future to learn to live in the present

"Once upon a time there was a summer."

That's the way the bedtime story starts, the one Mari Caldwell tells her little girl. It's also her secret story of waking up one day in San Francisco, 1967, having time-traveled to the tie-dyed Summer of Love.

But she was seventeen then. Now, at 34, where Mari once saw 60's idealism, she now sees only disillusionment. Newly divorced and stuck in a settled-for career, Mari's failed at giving her child the perfect family she'd envisioned. That weird weekend in the sixties- the rock band she crashed with, the musician she loved, the hit song he wrote for her-- lives in the way-back of her mind. Did it even happen? She's not so sure... Until it happens again.

Playback rewinds Mari's life as she makes a second visit to Haight-Ashbury in 1967, now autumn. The band, Mari's rival, and her first love all see the 17-year-old girl they met in June. But inside, adult Mari faces both tender and devastating choices. What if, regardless of how the times have a-changed, love changes everything after all? What if it even changes her?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1644284871
• ISBN13: 9781644284872
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Rare Bird Books
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"