About Junkins novel Orchards of Almonds: Don Junkins semi-autobiographical novel Orchards of Almonds blossoms with a Camelot-studded cast of characters that includes Kennedys alive and dead LBJ and company Reagan and dozens of California politicos academics Viet Nam protesters and movie stars. . . . Junkins-as much the poet in design as in language-has achieved another triumph of deftness irony and grace. Allen Josephs (On Hemingway and Spain) I was bowled over by Puss. I have never read in any other literary work such a profoundly pure and honest and dead-on rendering of the young girl. And that coupled with her extraordinary father/daughter relationship it moved me deeply. He did for that relationship what Hemingway did for father and son in Indian Camp. Linda Miller (Letters from the Lost Generation: Gerald and Sara Murphy and Friends)