LA Shorts

Reading these short stories is like being a fly on a Hollywood Blvd. Coffee Shop wall, or perhaps even a lost Angel sitting on a freeway overpass. This is a compilation of short quick stories by various writers. As a former Californian growing up just north of Hollywood, I had to read this book and so glad I did! What fun this is to get the various tidbits and glimpses into the diversity and choas that is California. While enjoying these stories I felt like I was right there, driving along Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu and stopping along the way in Trancas to grab some breakfast and eavesdroping on the fasinating conversations swirling around the room or watching the assorted characters coming and going. Each writer brings his or her own California experience to the page from the gang member to the foreigner or the wannabe to the eccentric, all dealing with the smog, traffic and the surrealistic reality that is California. If you've never been to California, you will come away with an insider's look into one of the most diverse States in this Country told by some of the most gifted writers around telling it like it is.

Bravo to Steven Gilbar for collecting these varied, poignant and hilarious stories about the vast and complex City of Los Angeles. We get a taste of many cultures with protagonists spread from Van Nuys to Hollywood, from Beverly Hills to El Segundo, from Malibu to Long Beach, and on and on. There are stories here by Yxta Maya Murray, Walter Mosely, Ty Pak, Kate Braverman, Bernard Cooper, and more. For those of us who live in this great city, this collection will reaffirm the dazzling variety that makes up Los Angeles. And for those who don't know this city, this book will disabuse them of the cliches they've accumulated through the years.

I started with the last story, The Spells of Ordinary Twilight (for a class on grief I am going to teach), and was moved by content and style to read on. I became engrossed by Eternal Love, and sat happily waiting for more than an hour in my doctor's waiting room, reading this story about two retarded young people, and how this relates with the story of the girl's parents. Having had a handicapped daughter, I could only nod and feel every emotion along with the characters of the story. From there to: Stupid Girl. Here I was not being able to put the story down. Then there is Night Sky and the wonderfully observed immigrant' story: The Palace of Marriage. All of the stories have merit, the list is long. The characterization is true, the language always appropriate to the story, always real. The writers are equally talented in their use of metaphor and simili, and their observations ring true. The stories, one after the other, capture different elements of LA, from the would-be screenwriter to the Russian immigrant to the jilted woman with emotional ties to a man with Aids. They take place in LA and are typical for that city, but as they touch the human heart, they are also larger than the city in which they play, they are universal stories, everyone, anywhere should read.