108 West Centre Street, Baltimore, MD
W: Maryland Center for the Book at Maryland Humanities
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother and singing in her church choir. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor.
Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.