Bohemians West
Coast Life

Famed Los Gatos bohemians focus of Bookshop Santa Cruz virtual interview

THE HERE & NOW: Historian Sherry L. Smith will discuss her new book Bohemians West: Free Love, Family, and Radicals in Twentieth-Century America, a story of West Coast free-love pioneers a century ago at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

Unlike bell-bottoms and the Beatles, “free love” was not a concept that emerged out of nowhere in the 1960s. On Dec. 2, in a virtual online event sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz, historian Sherry L. Smith will discuss her new book Bohemians West: Free Love, Family, and Radicals in Twentieth-Century America, a story of West Coast free-love pioneers a century ago.

Smith will be interviewed live by celebrated Santa Cruz author and historian Geoffrey Dunn (Santa Cruz Is In the Heart), as she tells the story of Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood, a couple who fused their radical political ideas with their personal relationship, and established a retreat in Los Gatos in the 1920s that later came to be known as The Cats Estate.

The estate is marked by a pair of cat statues, known locally as Leo and Leona, that can been on southbound Highway 17 in Los Gatos.

The event, which takes place Dec. 2 at 7 p.m., is free, but registration is required. Details: www.bookshopsantacruz.com.