Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family

Amazon.com Review:
In the town of Sunnyvale, in the heart of Silicon Valley, every day brings sunshine and progress, and everything is supposed to work out okay. Not surprisingly, this thoughtful and deeply affecting memoir tells the story of a family that falls apart (or rather "off the Norman Rockwell easel") in the midst of this fantasy. When Mrs. Goodell decides to get a divorce, she blasts off from Planet Marriage and hitches her future to the embryonic Apple Computer company. The other family members, however, quickly unravel. Jeff, the oldest son, quits his Apple job for the casinos of Lake Tahoe, fully believing he is "leaving behind a bunch of nerdy machine heads who were destined to live small, narrow lives empty of romance or mystery." His father, a landscape architect and a family man devastated by the divorce, finds himself becoming an anachronism in the Silicon Valley chip-and-code culture. And the sensitive youngest son, Jerry, plunges into drugs, alcohol, and sexual experimentation. While there are amusing anecdotes about what happens in the cubicles of the computer industry, Goodell focuses his clear eyes and likable style on the powerful relations of family members in crisis--on the corrosive power of competition between siblings, the disillusionment of seeing a parent fail, the despair of witnessing a loved one self-destruct, and the inevitable backlash that happens when we try to run away. Goodell himself is party to this universal irony for, despite trying to flee Silicon Valley culture, he's became one of its best-known chroniclers. And in the Valley, he finds the greatest metaphor for escape: I feel like I'm looking down into the heart of a vast electronic hive, where the honey is time: faster chips, faster software, faster wires. It's not about efficiency--it is about cheating death. Dreaming of speed is the way engineers dream of immortality. The men in Goodell's family are, in their own ways, at odds with this reigning faith. Goodell has given us a powerful and ultimately redemptive example of a family caught in the vortex of rapidly changing times and the tragedy wrought on those left behind. --Lesley Reed

A pleasant surprise.:
I didn't know anything about this story or author when I picked up this book; I just wanted to read it because I grew up in Sunnyvale (and still live in the Bay Area). I found that the story moves along quietly and rather gently while describing serious subject matter: a family is broken apart by divorce. Meanwhile, the vast promise of the Silicon Valley is the background. It was a very honest portrayal of life and troubles in this area, very authentic to me: my father was an immigrant, drawn to California and the Bay Area as the promised land, and he was very much like the men in this book, wanting success, to make something of himself, expecting the best from his children, pressuring them to succeed because how can you possibly fail when you live in an Eichler home in a place called Sunnyvale in the place that created the technological revolution? Like the author himself, I was not the least bit drawn to the computer industry, wanting instead to be artistic and creative. Therefore, I never belonging here. I've been trying to get out of this area for years; in the book, the lead character/author moves to New York. I never realized that those of us who grew up in Sunnyvale could have similar life experiences despite differences in ethnicity, family background, etc. Your hometown influences you and your family and every part of your life. How nice to read a book that illustrates this so effectively.

modern American family tragedy:
It sounds completely trite, but I could not put this book down. The true story of the author's family, this is a story that most middle-class Americans can relate to. It's a story of divorce, coming of age, confusion, madness and family bonds. It's heartbreakingly honest and a cautionary tale for how things can spiral out of control.

Vivid portrayal of the valley:
I felt so connected to "the valley" while reading this book. I grew up in Sunnyvale and surrounding towns and knew exactly where the author was when he described the area. What for me seemed like "Anywhere, USA" became unique in my eyes for the first time. It has been an experience watching the area explode with change thoughout my life. Goodell does a great job of describing the pain in ordinary lives, and I could feel his honest emotion shine through without any gushiness or corniness: the experience of being human in our modern times. Thanks, Mr. Goodell for a great, meaningful book!

Sophomoric and Uninspired:
Jeff Goodell's book about his family and life suffers from having boring and mundane subject matter. His domestic problems are summed up in divorced parents and dysfunctional siblings that are wholly uninteresting and generally unsympathetic. His love for his brother is forced into the book to make the narrator more sympathetic and thus more central to the plot. Finally, the prose is as boring as the story as it is both unimaginative and all too simplistic. Just because Goodell had a life it does not warrant him to write about it.

Reality Check:
Here is some perspective: I am living in Sunnyvale now, as I have for ten years. I was born and raised a black male in the "low-income section" of Memphis Tennessee. I invite you to tell me that I have not seen worse than this family. I am now in high tech, and also active in Sunnyvale community service, and I am a successful musician in Sunnyvale as a second career. From my perspective, this family had something bad happen to them and they did not recover but simply unraveled and used that bad event as a target of blame. The book is selling successfuly because (1) the title captures the attention of a large number of people who tend to buy books, (2) the issue of broken homes is so pervasive in this society that the book is bound (so to speak) to resonate with a significant number of potential buyers, and (3) it is titillating to discover something negative associated with something that is usually portrayed postively. So despite being titled "Sunnyvale", the book is not about Sunnyvale really. The woman could have left for Procter & Gamble (OH), Dell (TX), or IBM (anywhere), would that have changed the story? Sunnyvale is a great and robust city, and I think it was a cheap shot to mention it in the title, but of course you are entitled to your own opinion.