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25th out of 30 books
—
64 voters
Elsewhere, California: A Novel
by
Dana Johnson
We first met Avery in two of the stories featured in Dana Johnson’s award�winning collection Break Any Woman Down. As a young girl, she and her family escape the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West Covina. This average life, filled with school, trips to 7�Eleven to gawk at Tiger Beat magazine, and family outings to Dodger Stadium,...more
Paperback, 304 pages
Published
June 12th 2012
by Counterpoint
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This is obviously a book about identity boundaries and over stepping them.
Avery, a black child growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, CA doesn't exactly have the tastes that one would expect of a black child of the 70's, 80's. Avery is the main character of this novel, and her story is told throughout the book alternately by both her adult and child-to-adult voice. I think the objective of the writer is to examine and expose the boundaries of blackness and feminine identity. I mean, how oft...more
Outstanding and a phenomenal coming of age novel. This work, as was stated by a previous reviewer, is an excellent follow up to Johnson's short story collection, "Break Any Woman Down." The Avery character is extremely complex, and deals with a variety of psychological issues that are dictated by societies dictating of who she is and who she should be and what Avery herself feels she should be, also, stemming from a societal push. The transitional passages between young/developing Avery and Aver...more
This book is very well written, voice changes as the main character does, and reflects that without being showy. This is more of a "quietly observed" collection of episodes in the life of Avery, as she ages from girl to woman, artist and partner to a wealthy Hollywood Hills attorney who is first-generation Italian. The pleasure is in the voice and seeing how Avery relates to the various people and situations in her life, where she often seems to not quite fit in with wherever she happens to be....more
Voice and dialogue, got to have voice and dialogue, otherwise it's just a descriptive narrative and somewhere around the hundredth fluffy description and transcribed imagery I get bored. I mean I've read books that were all that, but they didn't grip me and keep me interested. I'll read a slightly less well written novel with a great voice and tight dialogue over flowery chit-chat any day. Thankfully this compromise is not the case with Dana Johnson's Elsewhere, California. Her protagonist, a yo...more
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Read this in our bookclub. We haven't hit winners lately, but this one is a classic. It is easy to read, yet profound in many ways. The theme is poverty vs wealth and the attitudes one learns as part of one or the other while growing up. It is well written with poignant vignettes of the poor to rich protagonist's (a woman) life. She got into USC because of the program for the disadvantaged students. The book clearly depicts why we need these kinds of programs, even if the right is always against...more
http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.21/up-th...
Up the road and a world away: A review of Elsewhere, California
REVIEW - From the December 10, 2012 High Country News issue
By Jenny Shank
Elsewhere, California
Dana Johnson
276 pages, softcover: $15.95.
Counterpoint, 2012.
Dana Johnson's thoughtful and affecting first novel, Elsewhere, California, is narrated by a girl named Avery, whom we first meet as a child growing up in South Central Los Angeles in the '70s and '80s. When her brother is threatened by gangs,...more
Up the road and a world away: A review of Elsewhere, California
REVIEW - From the December 10, 2012 High Country News issue
By Jenny Shank
Elsewhere, California
Dana Johnson
276 pages, softcover: $15.95.
Counterpoint, 2012.
Dana Johnson's thoughtful and affecting first novel, Elsewhere, California, is narrated by a girl named Avery, whom we first meet as a child growing up in South Central Los Angeles in the '70s and '80s. When her brother is threatened by gangs,...more
You’ve probably never heard of Avery Arlington, the protagonist of Dana Johnson’s novel “Elsewhere, California,” but you know her. She’s the childhood friend whose parents moved her out of the ’hood, and you never saw her again. She’s the awkward, only black girl in class. She’s the preteen who lingers at the magazine rack in 7-Eleven dreaming about being anyone other than who she is. She’s the college roommate or classmate who always looked and acted like she didn’t quite belong at an elite pri...more
The pain of adolescence and that point in adulthood where we finally figure out who we are are woven together throughout this very smart book. Johnson nails dialogue, as her protagonist, Avery's voice goes from childhood in South Central to growing up in the valley to gentrification in the Hollywood Hills. But all of Avery's voices anchor us firmly in where she is at the moment. Johnson creates an overall personal journey for our heroine without losing tension or interest along the way.
I loved this book! I love her use of language to take us back and forth in time. As an LA resident, I enjoyed her descriptions of the different neighborhoods, what they represent and how they impact her characters. It is a story about race, class, gender, love, family and ultimately about becoming okay with who you are.
I liked the story better than the writing which I found to be slow going. Interesting characters and a lovely illustration of growing up in a state of racial, class and cultural confusion.
I think Johnson's work in capturing the experience of being an African-American girl growing up in the largely white LA suburbs in the 70s is powerful and important, but hard to read. I really felt for the protagonist, Avery, who was almost stuck in two different worlds and whose white peers and surrounding white culture nearly succeeded at alienating her from her own blackness. Though technically "successful" as an adult (Avery graduated from college and made it out of poverty), it was still sa...more
I couldn't put this book down. Beautiful. Eye-opening on so many accounts. I was immediately pulled deeply into Avery's world because she tells her story with an open heart--as a child, a woman, an artist -- and with all the complications (and simplicity) that being her true self reveals.
An excellent follow-up to her Flannery O'Connor Award-winning collection, Break Any Woman Down.
For a full review, see my blog: http://thestoryisthecure.blogspot.com/
For a full review, see my blog: http://thestoryisthecure.blogspot.com/
This is an unusually good coming-of-age novel that I hope gets some end-of-year best-books-list love. Avery's navigation of race and class issues (on top of the usual preteen concerns of clothes and friends and parents) is the heart of the book. I wasn't as convinced by the adult Avery's relationship with the obscure Massimo (I'm not sure the novel needed a frame story at all), but I appreciate the idea that your adolescent life continues to reverberate throughout your adulthood.
"I'm crazy. I feel crazy. It's windy. Santa Ana winds that I usually love. All warm and super strong and the wind does make you feel a bit crazy."
Great line from Elsewhere, California. The author does an amazing job describing Southern CA/LA culture back then where I was born. Made me smile and cringe at the similar memories. Raw and well written.
Great line from Elsewhere, California. The author does an amazing job describing Southern CA/LA culture back then where I was born. Made me smile and cringe at the similar memories. Raw and well written.
Each individual part was underwhelming, but as a whole, much better than the parts (good thing I did not read this in short story or excerpt form).
Brought me back to my own teenage years and the search for identify in the Southern California wild.
Anyone who'd like to truly understand the complexity and beauty of my home state needs to read Dana Johnson
First book of the new year! Yeah ! Interesting read. Loved the hopeful ending. Appreciated the cultural references of the SGV in the 70s and 80s.
Pretty good. I liked Avery but I often wanted to shake her . . . .until the end of the book : ).
Loved this. The way she develops Avery's character is just out of this world good.
4.5 stars at least. A quiet, moving bildungsroman that hit the spot.
Great book! About a girl who grows up in SoCal, it keeps switching back and forth from past to present day.
I'd actually rate this 3.5. Warm, memorable coming-of-age story.
May 16, 2013
Suzanne Maguire
marked it as to-read
May 09, 2013
Precious Williams
is currently reading it
May 08, 2013
Amanda
marked it as to-read
May 08, 2013
O.M.
marked it as to-read
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| My progress on Elsewhere California | 4 | 4 | Oct 02, 2012 03:09pm |
