West of the West :
Arax, Mark, 1956-
West of the West : dreamers, believers, builders, and killers in the Golden State / by Mark Arax. - 1st edition - New York : PublicAffairs, 2009. - XIV, 347 p. ; 24 cm.
To my three children, Ash, Joe, and Jake. My heart, always.
Contents: The last valley -- The agent -- Eyre of the storm -- Legend of Zankou -- The summer of the death of Hilario Guzman -- Highlands of Humboldt -- Last Okie of Lamont -- The great microbe hunt -- Home front -- Confessions of an Armenian moonshiner.
In the tradition of Joan Didion, Arax combines journalism, essay, and memoir to capture social upheaval as well as the sense of being rooted in a community. This new collection finds a different drama rising out of each confounding landscape: a portrait of one family from Oaxaca, through harrowing border crossings and brutal raisin harvests; right-wing Christians and Jews form a strange pact that tries to silence debate on the War on Terror; Lamont, the inspiration for the town in the Grapes of Wrath, has but one Okie left, who tells Arax his life story as he drives to a funeral to bury one more Dust Bowl migrant; in Humboldt County, the old hippies are battling the new hippies over "pollution pot." Arax pieces together the murder-suicide at the heart of a rotisserie chicken empire, and provides a moving epilogue to the murder of his own father.--From publisher description.
9781586483906
Arax, Mark, 1956- --Travel--California.
California--History.
West of the West : dreamers, believers, builders, and killers in the Golden State / by Mark Arax. - 1st edition - New York : PublicAffairs, 2009. - XIV, 347 p. ; 24 cm.
To my three children, Ash, Joe, and Jake. My heart, always.
Contents: The last valley -- The agent -- Eyre of the storm -- Legend of Zankou -- The summer of the death of Hilario Guzman -- Highlands of Humboldt -- Last Okie of Lamont -- The great microbe hunt -- Home front -- Confessions of an Armenian moonshiner.
In the tradition of Joan Didion, Arax combines journalism, essay, and memoir to capture social upheaval as well as the sense of being rooted in a community. This new collection finds a different drama rising out of each confounding landscape: a portrait of one family from Oaxaca, through harrowing border crossings and brutal raisin harvests; right-wing Christians and Jews form a strange pact that tries to silence debate on the War on Terror; Lamont, the inspiration for the town in the Grapes of Wrath, has but one Okie left, who tells Arax his life story as he drives to a funeral to bury one more Dust Bowl migrant; in Humboldt County, the old hippies are battling the new hippies over "pollution pot." Arax pieces together the murder-suicide at the heart of a rotisserie chicken empire, and provides a moving epilogue to the murder of his own father.--From publisher description.
9781586483906
Arax, Mark, 1956- --Travel--California.
California--History.