California Readin’

Fed up with all the snow storms that kept battering New England earlier in the winter (remember those?), my husband and I were lucky enough to be able to get away for a short trip to California at the end of February.  We explored the California coast for a week, making the trek from LA to San Francisco.  Since I’m a person who loves to have my surroundings match what I’m reading on a trip, I wanted to make sure I had plenty of appropriate reading material in the car. Hence, I compiled a short book list dedicated to the The Golden State:

Los Angeles may make you think of sun and beaches, celebrities and palm trees, but the city has an impressive literary pedigree.  If you’re a true-crime or detective story enthusiast, there are plenty of LA novels to choose from. Classic LA Noir writers such as Raymond Chandler (who set his short story “I’ll Be Waiting” in the Mayfair Hotel, where we stayed) and James Ellroy (whose novel The Black Dahlia fictionalizes a classic unsolved true crime) are usually the first who come to mind.

Two authors who I believe capture the essence of LA spectacularly, two of my favorites, are Janet Fitch and Joan Didion.  If you’re planning a trip to the LA area, bring one (or both) of these two ladies along and you won’t be disappointed.  Janet Fitch’s excellent first novel, White Oleander, tells the story of Astrid, a teenager who comes of age in the foster care system after her mother, Ingrid, is convicted of murder. This was the book I curled up with in the car, at the beach, in the hotel–and it was a re-read! Janet Fitch is one of those writers who absolutely hypnotizes me. She perfectly captures the cool yet heartbreaking ambiance of Los Angeles and its surrounding natural wonders–the San Gabriel mountains, the Santa Ana winds, and the title’s oleander flowers that are beautiful but poisonous like the character of Ingrid.

I had originally tried to read Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays on a trip to Israel.  I started it, but soon put it down, frowning.  Didion’s rich, languid prose is so saturated with a precise Southern Californian mood that it felt wrong to read it anywhere else.  Didion’s heroine, Maria Wyeth, is an actress, divorcee and mother mired in the ennui of living an insincere Los Angeles existence.  This novel has become a classic over the last three decades with good reason – it showcases Didion’s astute, acerbic voice.   (In case you’re interested, the book I should have brought to read in Israel is Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love.)

As we made our way up the Pacific Coast Highway, I moved from LA novels to a writer who is arguably one of the most important figures in American literature — John Steinbeck.  OK, I hadn’t actually brought any Steinbeck novels with me, but as we entered Steinbeck territory I began to appreciate him in a way I hadn’t before.  In Monteray, we explored the setting of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.  Salinas, California, about two hours south of San Francisco, is the hometown of this literary great, and also the home of a fantastic museum dedicated to all things Steinbeck.  After our visit I promptly added Cannery Row and East of Eden to my reading list, since I had now spent time in the very streets where those books are set.

When we arrived in San Francisco, the last leg of our trip, I cracked open Fault Lines by Anne Rivers Siddons.  Siddons, who usually writes Southern-set fiction, takes a departure here with a story that begins in Georgia, but quickly migrates to California, first LA and then San Francisco, where the bulk of the story is set.  Siddons is a master at portraying complicated female relationships, and this title is no exception.  The plot concerns Merritt Fowler, a “natural caretaker,” her fragile 16-year-old daughter, Glynn, and Merritt’s younger sister Laura, a beautiful, charismatic, semi-washed-up Hollywood actress.   The three set off on a road trip through the earthquake territory surrounding the San Andreas Fault and end up in a secluded mountain lodge staffed by an enigmatic groundskeeper.  While the story did veer off into romance-novel territory in the middle, it was an absorbing and ultimately satisfying read.

Thus concludes my California reading list. And next time, I’ll remember my Steinbeck!

-Becky