The Reader's Shelf: California, Here I Come

From its majestic mountain ranges to its gorgeous deserts and dramatic shorelines, the Golden State has long represented the ideal place to live. California can also claim more than its fair share of writers, including Helen Hunt Jackson, Jack London,

John Steinbeck, and Sandra Tsing Loh. Whether or not they agree that California is something of a mythical paradise, the following authors celebrate their state's diverse landscape and people. [This is the first in an occasional series of columns dealing with the literature of particular states; readers interested in contributing a column on this topic should email editor Nancy Pearl.]

Inviting readers to California's central coast, Thomas Steinbeck's DOWN TO A SOUNDLESS SEA (Ballantine. 2002. ISBN 0-345-45576-2. $24.95; pap. 2003 ISBN 0-345-45577-0. $13.95) is an extremely well-written debut collection of short stories rich in history and folklore. His famous father, John, appears in "The Wool Gatherer," a remarkable, atmospheric tale of a wrangler who spies an enormous bear above the hills of the Pacific. Other intriguing selections include the myth-like "The Night Guide," about a very young boy who heroically rescues his mother, and a piece focusing on the Chinese slave trade of the central coast during the mid 1840s. Steinbeck's beautiful stories are so rich and amazingly descriptive that it is almost impossible not to hear the surf crashing against the rocks of Big Sur.

Ava Sing Lo, the main character of THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS by Gayle Brandeis (HarperCollins. 2003. ISBN 0-06-052803-6. $23.95), is the product of a Korean-born mother and an African American soldier. Seeking to understand her mother as well as her own racial identity, she decides to volunteer with environmentalists at Salton Sea, the site of the worst bird kill-off in American history. The irony is that since childhood Ava has accidentally killed her mother's birds. Told in chapters that alternate between past and present, this moving novel won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for addressing social problems.

Susan Straight's AQUABOOGIE: A NOVEL IN STORIES (Milkweed. 1994. ISBN 0-915943-59-X. pap. $12.95) introduces us to Rio Seco, her fictional version of Riverside, CA. This strong collection offers vignettes, insights, and snippets of the everyday lives of her African American characters: Roscoe, working on a road crew and ruminating on his life; nine-year-old Demone, who is learning-challenged and distracted from his school work by his troubled, self-destructive older brother. We also become acquainted with Shawan, from South Central Los Angeles, to whom guns and gang warfare are a constant of her everyday existence and Buddah, an incarcerated youth who is attracted to shiny cars.

Jo-Ann Mapson takes us to the canyon lands and beaches of southern California's Orange County in HANK AND CHLOE (HarperPerennial: HarperCollins. 1994. ISBN 0-06-092464-0. pap. $13), where two of the most unlikely characters fall in love. Middle-aged, reticent Hank, a local college professor of folklore, and 33-year-old Chloe are drawn to each other, until Chloe's headstrong ways cause a rift between them. Mapson also paints a brilliant scene of the opulent Huntington Harbour area, as well as lemon ranches and the inland rustic canyons, in SHADOW RANCH (HarperPerennial: HarperCollins. 1997. ISBN 0-06-092843-3. pap. $13), her look at a tragedy that threatens the Carpenter family and their struggle to survive.

THE REPUBLIC OF EAST L.A.: STORIES (Rayo: HarperCollins. 2002. ISBN 0-06-621263-4. $23.95) is Luis J. Rodriguez's compassionate and poignant look at America's largest barrio. The author's love for these down-on-their-luck residents and their struggling neighborhoods is evident in these haunting, poetic tales. We glimpse a dying father who finds a way to communicate; a chatty, philosophical limo driver in touch with the emptiness of the rich; a testifying evangelist telling us of her personal path toward her savior; and the ultimately hopeful but nightmarish slice of life depicting the lure of street life and its effect on two teenage sisters.

Los Angeles and environs are so well presented in Janet Fitch's WHITE OLEANDER (Little, Brown. 1999. ISBN 0-316-56932-1. $24.95; pap. Back Bay. 2000. ISBN 0-316-28495-5. $13.95) that we feel we've traveled to the many suburbs that she depicts. Whether Fitch is tracing the steps that lead Ingrid to the Chino Correctional Institute for Women as a convicted murderer, or illustrating the path her 13-year-old daughter Astrid must follow in a variety of foster homes, it's clear that we're going down the road to the characters' self-discovery. Whether we temporarily reside with Astrid in the Sunland-Tujunga region or Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley, we will become intimate with the city of angels.

The world of San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1960s comes alive in Fae Myenne Ng's first novel, BONE (HarperPerennial: HarperCollins. 1994. ISBN 0-06-097592-X. pap. $12.95). It is Ng's wonderful eye for detail that offers us an intimate look into the mysterious life of the sorrowful, guilt-ridden Leong family: seamstress Mah, merchant seaman Leon, and their oldest daughter, Leila. The middle daughter, Ona, has ended her life, jumping from the roof of a Chinatown housing project, and Nina, a flight attendant who leads trips to China, has also fled the family. Ng also gives us an insider's view of Chinatown's grocery stores; restaurants along Waverly Place, Stockton Street, and Portsmouth Square; and the housing projects—each as finely delineated as her heartbreaking characters.

This column was contributed by Andrea Tarr, a librarian at the Corona Public Library, CA