Everything you need to understand or teach The Doomsters by Ross Macdonald.
The Doomsters contains the first extensive use of the exploration of the family saga as a plot device. All of Macdonald's novels deal with the importance of the family in one way or another, but with The Doomsters the history of the family integrates with the psychological makeup of the individual characters and the fledgling society of California to create the interconnected world of the Archer series.
The dissection of the family begins...