[This book] is the first eye-witness account of Henry Miller's sojourn on the California coast - the years of The Rosy Crucifixion - and of his marriage with his third wife, Marta Lepska. In episodes sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious, [the book] also show[s] a post-bohemian, pre-hippie community practicing an ethic of freedom - much of it centered around Murphy's Hot Springs, now the heart of Esalen Institute, of which [the author] was briefly the caretaker.... [The book contains] a previously unpublished ten-page letter from Henry, advising the [author] in his first attempt at a novel.