There are just two days until our California Book Club gathering with Nina Revoyr! We hope you’ve had a thrilling time reading Southland. We are writing to announce that sociologist Manuel Pastor will briefly join the discussion with Revoyr, host John Freeman, and you, dear reader!
Pastor is a distinguished professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is the author of several books, including State of Resistance, which examines the tensions between racial anxiety and socioeconomic progress. Pastor studies how social, economic, and environmental issues intersect in low-income urban communities.
We are eager to hear Freeman and Pastor talk with Revoyr about the Crenshaw district, the relationships among different minority communities, social justice, and how Southland might speak to contemporary conversations about inequality and racism.
Here are the details of the event:
- When: Thursday, March 18, at 5 p.m. Pacific time.
- Where: To join the event on Zoom, click here.
- What: Your host, John Freeman, will be in conversation with Nina Revoyr, author of Southland. They will be joined by special guest Manuel Pastor.
- Author questions: Please send questions for Nina Revoyr to info@californiabookclub.com. You can also submit them using Zoom’s chat feature after the event begins.
- Attend to win: We will be giving away author-signed copies of Southland to five attendees, selected at random, following Thursday’s program.
- Mark your calendars: Upcoming CBC discussions with Myriam Gurba, author of Mean, on April 15; Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room, on May 20; and Robin Coste Lewis, author of Voyage of the Sable Venus, on June 17.
To sign up for Alta Journal’s California Book Club for free, click here.
Thanks, and see you Thursday!
POWERFUL OPENING
We hope you’ve been enjoying Southland. As a sneak peek for our upcoming gathering, here is a close reading of the first paragraph. Alta
UNEARTHED HISTORIES
Revoyr’s Southland follows the seemingly disparate lives of two Los Angeles communities. In an essay, CBC host John Freeman considers how Revoyr “excavates the traumatic, hidden pasts of families and neighborhoods.” Alta
STRANGE AND UNUSUAL
Speculative Los Angeles, edited by Denise Hamilton, is an anthology that features work about the weird, surreal, and mythic landscape of Los Angeles. In a review, Alta’s books editor, David L. Ulin, considers how Hamilton “peels back the surface of the real.” Alta
BREAKING NEWS
American West historian and Alta contributor William Deverell considers how the 1949 Kathy Fiscus tragedy—the original “girl in the well” story—shook the world. Zócalo Public Square
IMPORTANT LESSONS
Joshua Mohr’s memoir, Model Citizen, offers an unfiltered depiction of a struggling father and former addict. In this excerpt, Mohr charts the insights he’s gained as an older parent. Literary Hub
SOUL AND POWER
Rachel Brahinsky and Alexander Tarr make the case that the soul and historic power of San Francisco can be found in the East Bay. Boom California
VIRTUAL WORLDS
“I don’t live in that world of the imagination that I used to, but I would love to go back there because ultimately it felt so much more rewarding,” says Jo Ann Beard about living and working virtually. Los Angeles Review of Books
SCI-FI AND SURVIVAL
Octavia E. Butler understood the power of intimacy to transform our relationships into a collective destiny. In an essay, Julian Lucas considers how Butler’s fiction makes “the price of persisting viscerally real.” New Yorker
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