Mythologizing The Mundane: A Review of
Sunnydale Nights by Dawn Summers, Milton House, 380pp L12.95
Reviewer: Graham Peabody

There have already been several attempts to fictionalize the last days of Sunnydale, the otherwise ordinary Californian town that was destroyed by the collapse of an underground cave system four years ago. This ambitious semi-autobiographical first novel, aimed at the young adult market, is a fusion of fantasy and magical realism in which high school students rub shoulders with demons, the narrator's sister Billie is secretly in love with a vampire, and the town literally falls into Hell. The author, genuinely one of the survivors of Sunnydale, moved there from Los Angeles with her mother and sister in 1996 and was only seventeen at the time of the town's destruction. Nevertheless the story's factual content seems to be entirely accurate; shorn of its fantastic trappings it would be an excellent account of the last few years of this town, and the violence (believed to have been triggered by toxic fumes from the caves beneath the town) that marred its final days. Some of the most startling details seem too good to be true but when checked are accurate; for example, most of the rock groups mentioned as playing in the town (such as Nerf Herder and Darling Violetta) are obviously fictional, but supergroup Dingoes Ate My Baby genuinely originated there, and its original bass guitarist really was a classmate of the author's sister.