2 Los Angeles Novels as Stylish and Wild as the City Itself

Dear readers,

A few years ago I interviewed a writer who in a past life worked as a transcriber for people who had suffered traumatic brain injuries. Listening over and over to patients describe life-changing pain, she realized their realities bordered on the supernatural, and that adopting language more commonly found in science fiction or fantasy was the most honest way to convey their distress.

I thought of her earlier this summer, around the time I realized my knowledge of the Los Angeles literary canon was basically nonexistent. It was stupid I’d never thought to approach the city — which despite my years of visiting family there has never felt like terra firma — through novels. The books I recommend today are both set in the region, but that’s almost incidental. More important: They convey a sense of place that had previously eluded me, using fantastical, intentionally stylistic language, and somehow rank among the truest things I’ve read.

—Joumana

“Joe’s Word: An Echo Park Novel,” by Elizabeth Stromme

Fiction, 2003

This unsung stunner could credibly be called “pre-gentrification noir” — two words I wouldn’t normally put in the same room together, let alone the same clause.