Three complaisant kids, two stormy parents, one anxious French poodle, too many U-haul trailers, and the potholed road of the early 1960s.

Searching for Alpha Centauri: A Boyhood Memoir (formerly titled Easy Hearts) is American Public Television artist Gary Spetz's absorbing tale of living a nomadic life with an impetuous mother, a discontent casino-security-guard step-father, a kid-loathing French poodle, and two older, all-too-often unpleasant, siblings -- during the turbulent early 1960s.

The artist/author paints his experience with both humor and sensitivity, adeptly portraying his ever moving landscape. Effectively blended into Searching for Alpha Centauri's backdrop is the author's keen attention to the world events unfolding around him. These were the days of an impending nuclear war, an exciting new space race, an escalating conflict in Vietnam, a rising civil rights movement, the invasion of Beatlemania, and the shocking assassination of a President. To the author, this mix of colorful and dark days was, indeed, "the best of times" and "the worst of times."

Searching for Alpha Centauri, though often hilarious, is a beautifully rendered story of innocence, edification, intrigue, adventure, and endurance.