Sausalito Houseboat Wars: From History to Theater to Fiction Back to History — June 6 @ Sausalito Library & June 9 @ Tam Valley Cabin
On Thursday, June 6, 6:30 pm, at the Sausalito Library, and June 9, 4 pm at the Tam Valley Cabin, I’ll be giving a talk called “Sausalito Houseboat Wars: What Really Happened.”
In the late 1970s, the “houseboat wars” erupted in Sausalito on the site of Marinship, the abandoned World War II shipyard. Hippies and squatters were living free and easy on houseboats in a ramshackle shantytown, but public officials and developers set out to evict them and build new docks to attract more affluent residents. The counterculture was in full flower, and the houseboaters resisted eviction with street theater, civil disobedience, monkeywrenching, and more. All in front of TV cameras.
Join me on June 6 or June 9 for a colorful retelling of those turbulent times, including excerpts from houseboat residents and journalists, photographs by Bruce Forrester and Pirkle Jones, and video clips of TV news reports from the waterfront. I’ll also read from my new novel, Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery, which is not true, but inspired by those true events. The book captures the spirit of the times, and tells the truth in its own way. (As Neil Gaiman said, “Fiction is the lie that tells the truth.”)
Four-plus years ago, before the pandemic, I pitched the idea to the community theater troupe I’m part of, the Tam Valley Players, of writing a murder mystery play set during the houseboat wars. I interviewed a number of people who were there back in the day, and did a healthy amount of research, but not all that much. I was making things up. We were going for laughs more than historical accuracy. When I finished the script in the summer of 2020, well, we had no idea when live theater might ever return. That’s when I began adapting the play script into the novel, which was published last month.
Scene from “Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery” in 2023, which has since been adapted into the novel, Pirates of Sausalito.
We finally performed the show, in March 2023, at the Tam Valley Community Center, where the Tam Valley Players have been performing murder mystery dinner theater shows for more than a dozen years. I directed the show and it was stressful and demanding experience — we had to postpone opening weekend because six cast and crew members got covid — but we pulled it off and got laughs and applause and a wonderful time was had by all.
Once we finished our four-performance run, I jumped into high gear to finish the novel.
Meanwhile, knowing my book would be out this spring, I reached out to a librarian at the Mill Valley Library about hosting a talk, and she connected me to the Mill Valley Historical Society, and they wanted me to talk more about the history my book is based on than the book itself. At first I was wary — I never promised historical accuracy in the play or book, and now I had to distinguish what really happened from what I imagined.
But the librarians knew what they were doing. Enough people registered for the May 1 event, we had to move from the basement meeting room to the main reading room — and it’s unlikely that many people would have come if I were talking only about my book.
To get ready for the talk, I had to put on my historian hat and plunge back into the research, but fortunately, the real history is as full of drama and colorful characters as my novel. The talk went swimmingly — as my wife, who’s tough to please, said “it could not have gone better.”
If you missed the Mill Valley Library event, I hope you can make it to one of my upcoming talks. The events are free, but registration is required.
- June 6, 6:30 pm at the Sausalito Library, 420 Litho Street
- June 9, 4 pm at the Tam Valley Cabin, 60 Tennessee Valley Road
P.S. You can learn more about the novel here and the history here. There’s a video on the history page of my Mill Valley Library presentation, which I encourage you to watch — but not if you’re coming to one of my talks, which will be a rerun of the library talk.
It’s the 1970s, and the “houseboat wars” erupt in Sausalito on the site of Marinship, the abandoned World War II shipyard. Hippies and squatters are living free and easy on houseboats in a ramshackle shantytown, and greedy developers are determined to evict them and build new docks to attract affluent residents.
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