Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Gerald Haslam picks up where Mark Twain left off in this career-spanning collection of stories and essays brimming with life-only here is Kern County instead of Calaveras, Oildale instead of Nevada City, a great alligator hunt instead of a celebrated jumping frog.
Here too is a darker side of California's heartland, where a Japanese family bids goodbye to an America they thought they knew as they are trucked to a detention camp in the desert; where an Indian boy fights American bluecoat "savages"; and where "Okies," like the nation's black population, are shunned as second-class citizens.
And while Haslam's stories entertain, his essays, too, gesture at the sweeping diversity of the Central Valley, the innumerable cultures-both native and immigrant-and the richness of community found there. Haslam looks at problems of racism and a new social class he calls the "downwardly mobile," and he tackles environmental issues that plague the Valley-namely, desertification and water scarcity.
With an ear for local dialect and his feet firmly planted in his native soil, Haslam delivers wry stories and biting satire that secure him a place in the pantheon of great American writers and earn Oildale a spot on the literary map.
About the Author
Gerald Haslam is the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland and Workin' Man Blues: Country Music in California (available this fall from Heyday Books), and he edited Jack London's Golden State (also from Heyday Books). Haslam was professor of English at California State University, Sonoma, until his retirement in 1997. He now lives north of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Haslam's Valley,Gerald Haslam,Heyday Books,159714018X,American - General,California,Central Valley (Calif. : Valley),Central Valley (Valley),Fiction,Haslam, Gerald W.,Homes and haunts,Literary Collections,Literature - Classics / Criticism,Literature: Classics
Books Info:
Recommended Books