When she was 13, Wendy C. Ortiz started “dating” her 28 year-old English teacher. In her new memoir, Excavation, she returns to the years she spent maintaining this secret relationship.

It’s a disarming look at a tough adolescence. Ortiz manages to capture not only her own disorienting emotions, but also — as Tod and Rider will attest — an incredibly accurate portrait of life in the San Fernando Valley in the ’80s.But first, it’s a Bookshelf Roulette. And Julia regales us with stories of sleepwalking…Click here to purchase from an independent bookseller

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