The narrator in John Fante’s The Road to Los Angeles kept reminding me of Ignatius J. Riley in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. But without the heart. Both characters are really incapable of functioning in the world. Both live at the bottom of society, relying on the good graces of their mother for support. Both are convinced of their own genius and not … Continue reading The Road to Los Angeles by John Fante
Michelle McNamara didn’t live to complete her excellent account of hunting the Golden State Killer, whom she didn’t live to see arrested. So, what to make of this book? Incomplete at the time of the author’s death. About an unsolved crime. Let’s start with did I like it? Yes, I did. I liked the portions the author completed before her death the most, possibly only … Continue reading I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
Last week a friend of mine and I played hookey to go to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. The first Tuesday of the month is their free day. The CJM has never disappointed. C.J. and I typically go three or four times a year, yes on free Tuesdays, and have always been at least entertained. Sometimes we have been inspired. The current shows … Continue reading Inez Storer: Allow Nothing to Worry You
Add Fat City by Leonard Gardner to the list of great anti-California novels. That’s a new sub-genre I’m creating. The anti-California novel looks at the great California dream’s underbelly. What happened to all those people who came to California and didn’t strike it rich, but stayed here anyway? Think Nathenial West’s The Day of the Locust, Charles Bukowski’s Ham and Rye, John Fante’s Ask the Dust. There’s a rich body of … Continue reading My New Favorite Book: Fat City by Leonard Gardner
Finding a book suitable for grades six, seven and eight is not easy. The difference between a seventh grader and an eighth grader is dramatic, but the difference between a sixth and an eighth grader is stunning. This year we did our first school wide read, Chew on This by Charles Wilson and Eric Schlosser, based on Mr. Schlosser’s best-selling book Fast Food Nation. Each subject area read several … Continue reading Looking for the Next School Wide Read
C.J. and I visited Los Angeles this past week to see the James Kerry Marshall retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the same show we saw last summer in Chicago. We’ve become big fans of Mr. Marshall’s work. It was a mad-cap three-day trip–drive down, day in L.A. and drive home–but we managed to visit three bookstores while we were there. We stayed in … Continue reading Sunday Ramble: Travels, Art and Jane Austen Challenge
Visited the local Friends of the Library book sale yesterday, in the rain, where C.J. and I managed to spend much more than we intended. He got several art books and a couple of books full of house plans while I nearly completed my Jane Austen collection. Can you name the book I still have to find. I’ve decided it’s a good time to re-read all … Continue reading Sunday Ramble and Two Books I Didn’t Like. Sorry.
When I was in college, I was friends with a group of women who shared a flat on Divisidero Street in San Francisco, decades before it became a trendy neighborhood. In the 1980’s, four college students living on four or five hundred dollars a month each could come up with enough money to rent a flat. As longs as no one spends all the rent … Continue reading Black Wave by Michelle Tea
Drive is the best movie I have seen in a long, long time. I loved it so much I watched it twice in a row. And then went out and got the book. The book is very good, but the movie is better. The story concerns a young man who works by day as a stunt driver for movie productions in Los Angeles and by night … Continue reading Drive by James Sallis
In 1947, an excellent thriller needed only four characters: two women, one a respectable policeman’s wife the other a woman of questionable character, and two men, one a police detective the other a serial killer. With these four characters and a small supporting cast, Dorothy Hughes created an excellent noir thriller In A Lonely Place that can more than hold its own against any of … Continue reading In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Man, what a ride! Back when the giant “Hollywood” sign still ended in”Land,” Walter Huff, long time agent for a small time Los Angeles insurance company stops at the Nirdlinger home to get Mr. Nirdlinger’s signature on a routine renewal form. Nirdlinger’s wife Phyllis informs Huff that she’s alone. The two quickly begin an affair that ends with a plot to kill Mr. Nirdlinger and … Continue reading Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
It’s not easy to find these books. Small, very small, independent press books each of them clearly a labor of love at every step of the way. I found The Cupboard Press at a writer’s and writing conference in Los Angeles last year, two young people sitting at a table in the vast exhibition hall. I liked their little books, each small enough to fit … Continue reading Of Flesh and Fur by Duncan Barlow
May Contain Spoilers 