L.A. Literature
Ξ November 26th, 2007 | → | ∇ The Arts |
It’s been a slow week for postings here at
10. L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais – I was very tempted to go with Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer here (great premise about a criminal defense attorney who likes gangsta rap). However, Crais’ story about a serial killer out for revenge on an ex-cop gets the nudge for a beautiful closing few pages that may peg Los Angeles better than anything I’ve ever read.
9. The Watchman by Robert Crais – Aforementioned chase novel with excellent protagonists (who also appear in L.A. Requiem) and some surprisingly good character development for a plot-heavy thriller. Also, a few Northeast LA scenes and some Boyle Heights gangsters keep this prescient.
8. Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly – I’ve really become a fan of the Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch novels. Bosch plays the Vietnam Vet Homicide Detective who plays by his own rules and always gets his man. Somehow, after more than a dozen novels, his character (while not fresh) has avoided becoming the cliché that it so easily could. So many of the mysteries are excellent, but I chose Concrete Blonde because it mixes LAPD procedural, mystery, and courtroom drama with a gaggle of murdered porn stars and a ball-breaking civil rights attorney to keep the pages turning. I also seriously considered Angel’s Flight. Connelly mostly sets his novels in Hollywood and the Valley but he has an excellent feel for the city.
7. The Road to Tamazunchale by Ron Arias – I’ll briefly break away from the L.A. Noir genre to give mention to a book I read during an independent study on urban literature while in college. If you’re a fan of Magic Realism (think Gabriel Garcia Marquez) but are tired of reading about Columbia, Arias sets his own Chicano story of the fantastic in the Eastside’s Elysian Park. The Los Angeles River is the most memorable character in the novel. Conversely, if you’re not a fan of Magic Realism, you might really enjoy Chilean author Alberto Fuguet, whose Las Peliculas de mi Vida (the Movies of My Life) is mostly set in Los Angeles.
6. Crying of Lot 49 by Tomas Pynchon – Just being caught reading a Pynchon novel makes you feel so erudite, don’t you think? I’m actually not a big Pynchon fan, (as I was forced to read all of his works up to Mason & Dixon in one summer course) but this postmodern read is uncharacteristically brief by Pynchon standards. Follow the Los Angeles Basin Odyssey of Ms. Oedipa Maas, her crazy husband Mucho Maas who works at KCUF radio, and her attempt to uncover a national mail conspiracy. The book is dripping with paranoia, communication breakdown, and postmodern chaos. If you like this novel, go on to tackle Gravity’s Rainbow. If you don’t, tell Pynchon, Nabokov, DeLilo, and their intelligentsia grad student fan base to write a cohesive story and fuck off. Either way, this is a great barometer of whether or not you’ll like postmodern literature.
5. LA Confidential by James Ellroy – We’ve all seen the movie, but pick up the novel and see why Ellroy is such a staple of LA literature. Many of his other books are just as excellent but he sometimes gets carried away with a stream of consciousness narration and uber-hip slang that can detract from the plot. LA Confidential generally steers clear of these pitfalls and instead focuses on crooked cops, the seedy underbelly of 1950s Hollywood, and all things neo-Noir.
4. If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes – I always liked the irony of dubbing Himes as “Black Noir”, but this novel of the empty promise of equality Los Angeles held for black southerners during World War Two is shockingly powerful. Himes has more hard-boiled credentials than most as he did hard time for a jewelry heist. In prison, he wrote much of this story of a shipyard worker who constantly lives in fear of the white power structure taking everything he has worked so hard for, and who ultimately decides that the only way to conquer this fear is to plot the murder of a white man.
3. LA Rex by Will Beall – Beall can rival Himes in terms of crime credentials but this author comes from the other side of the law. He is a current LAPD officer, and last I heard, he was working the gangs somewhere in
2. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler – I love this book so much that I teach it in class. Chandler defined an entire genre of literature that is only recently receiving the critical attention it is due. This defines the Noir/Hard-boiled genre that many of the above writers have labored to copy. The convoluted plot is complete with the Femme Fatale embarrassing her oil rich daddy; a Santa Monica gangster running booze, gambling, and pornography; and the famous Philip Marlowe whose quick fists and even quicker wit, keep him trudging through the mire of 1930s Los Angeles. A word of warning: Chandler didn’t care if his plots made sense (he famously responded “I don’t know” to a telegram from Howard Hawks, who was making the film, asking who killed an ancillary character. Still, how can you not love a man who wrote “It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.”?
1. Day of the Locust by Nathanael West – West wrote this book while struggling as a screenplay writer in Hollywood. Set during the Great Depression, this novella examines the grotesque vapidity of the film industry and the empty promise of the Southern California Sunshine for hordes of Midwesterners who saw the city as an American El Dorado. West’s descriptions of the city at the novel’s opening and closing are unforgettable and remain accurate, in many respects, over 70 years later. Additionally, one of the main protagonists is a certain Homer J. Simpson who Matt Groening has claimed was not the genesis of his animated character. You read and be the judge.
on December 2nd, 2007 at 2:55 am
Can’t we start a book club in highland park?! They have one in Eagle Rock and it seems like perhaps older people and books I am not so into.
on December 4th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Hi York Blvd,
You put this list up and we’re the first to take you on?
We thought that lists were made for people to pick apart and criticize (in a respectful manner as to suggest new reads and consideration of books that you may have read and forgot you did or that you didn’t think were that good.)
Oh well, here goes.
We’re the first to admit we’re not big readers, but we liked Post Office by Charles Bukowski.
(Though what is the deal with them publishing every noodle and limerick he ever did, it’s kind of weird?)
Post Office is an awesome Los Angeles read!!
And what about one of the books that Joan Didion wrote: Play It As It Lays?
Couldn’t be accused of being upbeat (it’s pretty scary), but short (short is good- Post Office is short, too) and heavy. Don’t read for a pick-me-up.
And how about a Jon Fante book? He wrote a bunch of them as a series, but you could start with Ask the Dust. It’s pretty short…and awesome!!
BTW, Post Office is about a drunk schmuck in the mid-cities, we think or maybe Venice, and takes place in the sixties.
Play It As It Lays is a one of those Hollywood and people are crazy books, takes place when it came out, early seventies.
Ask the Dust is takes place in downtown Los Angeles, and the main guy lives in Bunker Hill. The Bunker Hill before it was the big glass boxes, MOCA, Disney, etc. He lived in a dumpy apartment. Better than we describe here.
OK, this is fun- who else has something to add?
on June 16th, 2008 at 4:52 am
Nice website!!