The standard Father’s Day gift assumes dads want to grill something, charge something, or wear something with a fish on it. We’d like to propose an alternative for the dad who would rather sit down with a book that argues with him a little. This guide is for him. Western epics, Los Angeles noir, and a few Alta keepsakes that require no batteries, cables, or instructions.
Philosophy of Writing, by David Arndt
Most philosophers, going back to Plato, treated writing as speech’s lesser cousin. Arndt sides with the dissenters—Nietzsche, Arendt, Morrison, Anzaldúa—and argues that writing is itself a way of searching for truth, then closes with 50 principles of composition to prove he means it practically. If your dad has opinions about semicolons, this is ammunition.
A Violent Masterpiece, by Jordan Harper
Los Angeles, right now: a Hollywood predator ready to burn the city down to stay free, a missing woman whose apartment gets cleaned out by men who only look like cops, and a live-streaming nightcrawler beaming the chaos to his subscribers.
Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces, by Michael Chabon
The centerpiece is Chabon’s account of escorting his 13-year-old to Paris Men’s Fashion Week—bored stiff, fighting the suspicion the whole thing was a waste of time, and slowly arriving somewhere better: deep respect for a kid’s unaccountable passions. Six more essays follow.
Swirl & Vortex, by Larry Levis
At last, all of Levis in one volume: the five books published in his lifetime, his posthumous work reconfigured, and unpublished late poems, edited by David St. John. Carolyn Forché called him one of the greatest poets of his generation, and 30 years after his early death, his reputation keeps widening among those who know.
It Calls You Back, by Luis J. Rodriguez
Always Running made Rodriguez famous for surviving gang life in East Los Angeles. The follow-up tells the harder story: starting over at 18, kicking heroin, searching for meaningful work, and wrestling with fatherhood while the rages and addictions refuse to stay behind.
What Came West, by Josh Weil
Sierra Nevada, 1840s, just before the gold rush ignites, and a murder that alters every life around it. Weil tells it in two voices, one of them a confession written to the son left behind, and takes the mythology of the Western seriously enough to take it apart. Andrew Sean Greer called it unmissable. We’re not arguing.
Altatude Book Bundle
Two volumes of Alta’s cartoons, California satire and Western absurdity, in print and from altaonline.com, suitable for a desert island, a psychiatrist’s waiting room, or the giant desk in your boss’s office.
All Alta Store purchases include free shipping.
Issue 12
Science fiction’s legacy, Buster Keaton blowing up a bridge in Oregon and his career along with it, and the Danish journalist courted by the Nazis and a young JFK before finding peace in the West. One of our strangest issues, in the best way.
Issue 23
Reintroducing grizzlies to California, Portland citizens repossessing stolen cars where law enforcement won’t, and the search for the real woman behind Kerouac’s The Subterraneans. The West’s obsessions, fully indulged.
Issue 32
Five writers, five photographers, one mission: out of the comfort zone. Plus, the West Coast’s last greyhounds and the Carmel harassment that drove Langston Hughes to write The Ways of White Folks. Required reading before anyone plans a summer trip.
Mapping the West
Historian Susan Schulten on how mapmakers have defined and redefined the West’s unruly topography since 1540, with the historic maps to show for it. Some people still unfold paper maps in the passenger seat, on principle. They will understand this gift immediately.
