Leonard Michaels (1) (1933–2003)

This collection was published in 1989, and while there are good selections, it also feels very dated 30 years later, as most of the writing is post-1945. 1945-1989 was 44 years, and with another 30 post 1989, it's time for a new edition/a new anthology (and maybe one is out there, this book has been on my shelves for way too long).

So this book was certainly interesting, but dated. It's hard to put yourself back 30 years, and try to forget the events that are so obviously missing.

What is definitely missing, though, is much of the state. This book is heavy on Hollywood and San Francisco. A touch of Monterey, the desert, of Japanese and Chinese and black communities. But where is the Central Valley? Where are the depression-era emigrants who came from the deep south, Oklahoma, Eastern cities, looking for agriculture and then during WW2 industrial jobs? Where is the Valley of Heart's Delight, better known now as Silicon Valley--that transformation occurred between 1945 and 1989, yet is not here. Where is Mendocino County and the rest of the far north? Cesar Chavez is mentioned, but shouldn't there be an excerpt focusing on Latino agricultural labors, grapes, etc? Instead there is an entire section on "the kind" of dreamers who come to California, on weird "California" spirituality, on stereotypes. Disappointing.… (mais)

I treated myself to a three-month subscription from Big Green Bookshop in the hopes of getting something new-to-me to read. This one was the first book I received, in July. I liked it for being a book I wouldn't have picked by myself, and I found the language flowed and kept me going, but the aimless life of the narrator (who appears to want to be a writer but doesn't actually seem to work for it, and where does the money to pay rent and food come from?) frustrated me from the start and I wasn't really keen on reading about a dysfunctional relationship with a mentally unstable woman. But as a short novel and written in a style that kept going, I finished it quicker than I thought I would.… (mais)