Cyra McFadden (born 1937) is an American writer, who lives on a houseboat in

Sausalito, California Sausalito (Spanish language, Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, California, Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, California ...

.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 and ...

, just north of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

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

Tuesday Weld Tuesday Weld (born Susan Ker Weld; August 27, 1943) is an American actress and model. She began acting as a child and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960. Over t ...

and

Martin Mull Martin Eugene Mull (born August 18, 1943) is an American actor, comedian and musician who has appeared in many television and film roles. He is also a painter and recording artist. As an actor, he first became known in his role on ''Mary Hartman, ...

. In 1986, McFadden wrote a positively reviewed personal

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in 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 autobi ...

entitled ''Rain or Shine: A Family Memoir'', in which she described her childhood growing up as the daughter of free-spirited parents. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer that year. Her father, Cy Taillon, was arguably the most famous American

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working va ...

announcer of the mid-20th century. 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 published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...

'' 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 third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 census. The city covers an area of and is the principal city of the Great Falls, M ...

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

Missoula, Montana Missoula ( ; fla, label=Salish language, Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula Cou ...

References

1937 births Living people 20th-century American novelists American columnists 20th-century American memoirists American women novelists Writers from Montana Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area San Francisco Examiner people People from Sausalito, 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