Patricia Christian's childhood and adolescence fit the idyllic picture of America in the 1950s and '60s in so many ways: a happy, cheerful child, she lived in a bungalow in a midsize midwestern city, had neighborhood friends and a big brother, and learned to read with Dick and Jane. Her days were filled with selling Girl Scout cookies, riding bikes with friends, and roller skating; her summers had visits to her aunts' and uncles' farms and family road trips to explore the great American West.
