California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts

A freewheeling catalog of misfits, eccentrics, creeps, criminals, and failed dreamers, this compendium profiles 45 bizarre personalities who exemplify the Golden State's well-deserved reputation for nonconformity. In the pages, Gold Rush pioneers are revealed as murderous madmen; Hollywood celebrities are shown to be drug-addled sex maniacs; early hippies are just 1950s weirdos; and even seemingly ordinary Californians have a talent for freakish, crazy, and criminal behavior. From frontier lunatic Grizzly Adams, whose head was one massive wound after multiple bear attacks, to "I Love Lucy" star William Frawley, a racist, misogynist, foul-mouthed drunk, and legendarily awful film director Ed Wood, "California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts" is a side-splitting look at the people who made California the strangest place on earth.