5 Literary Gems That Put You in the Driver’s Seat
David L. Ulin highlights five classic books that chart California’s restless spirit through stories of travel, identity, and transformation.
The literature of California is a literature of movement, beginning with those who came to the state from elsewhere and extending to the mobility that continues, in large measure, to define how we live. Here, then, are five signature works that take the road as both environment and character: a collective continental drift, if you will.•
This roundup appears in Issue 32 of Alta Journal. SUBSCRIBE
PARABLE OF THE SOWER (1993), BY OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
Butler’s visionary novel begins in the fictional Southern California town of Robledo, but when the community is breached by violent outsiders, the narrator, a young woman named Lauren, must head north by foot on the state’s shattered freeways, accompanied by several compatriots.
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US (2012), BY REYNA GRANDE
This nuanced and insightful memoir traces Grande’s journey, as an undocumented child, from Mexico to the United States, where she must make her way to reunite with her father in Los Angeles.
AFLAME: LEARNING FROM SILENCE (2025), BY PICO IYER
In this magnificent work of spiritual nonfiction, Iyer drives up the state from Santa Barbara to a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, tracking both his physical travels and the more internal journey to himself.
ON THE ROAD (1957), BY JACK KEROUAC
Kerouac’s breakthrough popularized the idea of the cross-country road trip for at least two different generations, but, in fact, the novel’s deepest meanings emerge from the unreconciled longings provoked by the characters’ encounters with the open road.
WANDERING STARS (2024), BY TOMMY ORANGE
In his second novel, Orange takes us from the past into the future, reconfiguring the city of Oakland not just as a destination but also as a nexus to which generations of Native Americans are drawn to come.
