Next Book Set in Los Angeles, a City That Defies Definition

I’m currently writing my third book in the Mary Donahue series and it takes place in California, and specifically, Los Angeles, an iconic city that, when mentioned, immediately conjures stereotypes. Which Mary detests. Because while stereotypes may hold a kernel of truth, they’re shallow and lazy. Getting to know the complexity of lies below the stereotypes is the name of the game.

That’s why every time I work on a scene now, I think about the four panelists I listened to during a recent writing conference in the City of Angels. All either live — or have lived — in the city and all love the very strange mix of cultures, variable socioeconomic statuses, colliding ambitions and sometimes soft, sometimes harsh beauty that can make visitors jump from awe one moment, to extreme discomfort the next.

For example, I walked over a mile from the convention center directly north to The Broad art museum through a relatively clean cityscape with office buildings of fabulous architecture, murals, restaurants and hotels.

Yet when I walked west from the convention center back to the hotel, I passed under the 110 (yes, “the” 110) and immediately entered a seemingly third world country of trash; warehouses; barred windows on derelict homes and apartment buildings, homeless encampments and streets with few pedestrians. I walked that to-from path to the convention center five times and each route was different.

If you’re thinking, “Yeah, that sounds about right,” I’ll challenge that by adding an anecdote. I walked from my hotel to the conference center five times, each time taking a different route. On the last trek back, I walked through a neighborhood, that though not pretty, was a neighborhood all the same. Mostly Hispanic, mothers walked hand-in-hand with their kids. Men sat on stoops, laughing while others worked on cars. Families bought food from Mexican street vendors. I felt safe the whole way.

So it’s a city that defies an easy description, which was the point of the panel I listened to during the conference. Comprised of four Angelinos, most of them brown-skinned or otherwise minority writers, they really opened my world to the nooks and crannies of a city that’s bizarre, beautiful, ridiculous and somehow dire.

The authors were Alex Espinoza, Jean Guerrero, Susan Straight and Vanessa Hua and these are the books they recommended: