Meridee Bang is brought up in a house on Olivine Street with too many children and too little money. It's the 1960s and while The Patty Duke Show and I Love Lucy depict what life should be like, things are somewhat different in the Bang household. For Meridee the movie of her life is called Getting Dragged up on Olivine Street. In her world, family life is all about survival. Spanning the '60s, '70s and '80s, Bangs follows Meridee from her pre-school years to her early twenties. Bright, sharp and hopeful, Meridee is a witty but troubled commentator. Will she grow into the beautiful swan with oodles of money that she imagines? Or will she remain an ugly duckling, stuck forever in concrete-block Christchurch? In this new, bold novel Stevan Eldred-Grigg returns to the family at the centre of his bestselling Oracles and Miracles.