An intrepid, edgy, and exacting fiction writer, memoirist, and interrogator of gender and desire, social expectations and individuality, Mazza (Charlatan, 2017) zeros in on aspects of our lives we'd rather not bring to light. In this scrapbook-memoir she investigates her parents' lives and her childhood in a spiky narrative accompanied by sidebars, photographs, newspaper clippings, and documents. Her father served as Depot Commander in Nuremberg immediately after WWII, prompting Mazza to dig up little-known facts about America's postwar operations in Germany. Her future "camp-counselor, swim-coach, girl-scout leader," and fourth-grade teacher mother turned down her dentist father's ahead-of-their-time offer to send her to dental school so she could take over his practice, choosing instead to major in physical education. Mazza, the third daughter before two longed-for brothers, scrutinizes her parents' time living and teaching at a Hollywood-favored private school before they moved the family to San Diego. As she tracks her coming-of-age and struggle to reconcile with her body, Mazza scrutinizes evolving attitudes toward race, sex, and self, turning her family's history into a richly illuminating slice of American life and consciousness.