Susan Straight

Really enjoyed [b:Mecca|62069858|Mecca|Susan Straight|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1661333667l/62069858._SX50_.jpg|86812780], especially traveling by book in Southern California in the desert regions while we soak in rainstorms in the Pacific NW and meeting the indigenous settlers of the areas around Los Angeles and east near the Salton Sea and the town of Mecca where the book takes place. Well written and interesting and poignant stories of different people using different points of view and how their lives intersect and come up against prejudice based on skin color and the threats of violence every day. Thanks to Colleen Fitzmaurice who recommended it to me. And Ron Charles of The Washington Post who reviewed it here https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/03/15/mecca-susan-straight-book-review...… (more)

This is a truly ambitious book. It attracted my attention because it takes place in parts of Southern California I explored in detail as a young man (nearly 50 years ago now), going to college and beginning my career in the area known as the Inland Empire. Corona, Claremont, Ontario. So I know the territory.

The author brings this rarely written-about territory to a global audience and does so with high fidelity and gusto. So many details, so vividly described: the terrain, the businesses, the cultural conflicts, the styles, the roads and -- offramp by offramp -- the freeways. Most of all, though, the author paints the usually overlooked mix of people and their looks, their preoccupations, their polyglotic lingo, their dreams, their harsh realities.

I say the book is ambitious because it attempts to give voice to more than a dozen different people, women and men, boys and girls, workers and bosses, natives, immigrants, drunks, druggies, strivers, the grounded and the free-floating spirits, the decent, the profane. No easy task. In the first chapters, the voices didn't ring particularly true, especially the men's. Also, the plot is slow to develop, with many of the early pages a bit overburdened by establishing decades-old facts. These facts do become important later on. A finer edit, however, might have laid this groundwork more expeditiously.

Just the same, if you begin this book and feel bogged down at first, persist. Page by page, the plot gathers momentum until its final scene strikes a tremendous punch. It accomplishes this not by an odd twist or some other gimmick, but instead by the slow, steady accretion of feeling as a reader hears the characters speak, understands their experience in the world, and senses a deep sympathy.

Somewhere in the middle of the book I began silently objecting to cardboard portrayals of a few, less savory characters. But one also could find similar fault with many of the world's great novels. "Les Misérables" comes to mind. If no one is going to call Susan Straight a contemporary Victor Hugo, I'll give "Mecca" four stars for its ambition, execution, and huge heart.… (more)

In this novel Straight looks at greater LA through a cast of characters--and all of these characters are linked somehow. These links aren't necessary to follow the story itself--but they are necessary to understand greater LA. We are all linked somehow, even if we don't know it or don't understand that this is true. This is not glitzy glamorous LA. This is the regular LA, where most of us here live.

Straight's characters include a Latino north OC native who grew up on a ranch and is now a CHP officer (and his family, longtime friends, fellow officers, and a mentor); Matelasse, a black and native woman whose family came from Louisiana (and her friends, children, ex-husband, co-workers); Ximena, a recently arrived undocumented immigrant (and her friends, family, co-workers, bosses); Bunny Goldman and her mother who married a wealthy older man and now lives as a semi-reclusive alcoholic and lonely widow.

Mecca is the town in the Coachella Valley--a place Ximena wants to get back to after being chased out by ICE. Matelasse also has family out here, on the Torres-Martinez Reservation. The diverse landscapes of SoCal--the hot dry desert, the difficult terrain in the fire-prone OC mountains, the urban bungalow court, the wealthy and lush hillside homes near Mulholland, the beach in Venice--are key to the various storylines. Food, crime, weather, traffic/travel distance, blood family and found family--come up again and again, and affect all of the diverse set of characters.

Straight knows Southern California, and as I listened I kept having to remind myself that this is fiction. I could see these places, having been to so places that felt like her descriptions (Fuego Canyon sounded like Carbon Canyon, Santiago Canton, Limestone Canyon). The Goldman house could fit into any hillside neighborhood in the Santa Monica Mountains between Brentwood and Los Feliz. The Seven Palms could be anywhere east of Whitewater, other than Palm Springs proper.

The only thing I did not like was the ending. After this nice long book with so many connected stories, I do not want to have to choose my own ending.… (more)

The community of Mecca is located in the Southern California desert, east of Los Angeles and San Diego. The people are ethnically diverse and about half the population works in agriculture. This is a far cry from the Southern California popularized in television.

The book opens with Johnny Frias, a member of the California Highway Patrol. Early in his career, Johnny killed a man caught in the act of sexually assaulting a woman. The woman fled, leaving Johnny with no witnesses. He never reported the incident and has lived with fear of reprisals ever since. Johnny’s story leads us to one character, who leads us to another, and so on. Everyone is routinely subjected to prejudice and discrimination by law enforcement and immigration officials, despite having deep, multi-generational roots in the United States. And everyone must teach their children how to avoid the worst possible outcome of these encounters.

Each character’s story is connected to another, often through some small event or circumstance unknown to either party. Sometimes I found it confusing to keep track of all this interconnectedness; at other times their stories were so compelling I stopped thinking about it. The landscape and climate were so vividly depicted that it was easy to feel part of it. And yet, I was disappointed with the ending. Focused primarily on one of the characters, it left me with questions about what happened to others and felt rather sudden and incomplete. Despite that, this is a book worth reading for greater insight to ethnic and racial issues in the US.… (more)