I Did Not Die unreels to cinematic life in genteel, affluent Riverside, California amid the Great Depression and the beginnings of a new California, dominated by the false glitter of Hollywood. With the highest per-capita income in California, thanks to Eliza Tibbet's famed seedless Bahia naval orange, Riverside dreamed magical dreams of a different Southern California than the one that Hollywood destroyed. The novel focuses on Mary Elizabeth, one troubled victim out of the many injured by the demise of that sunshine magical dreaming.