The Other California

by Haslam, Gerald W.

• ISBN13: 9780874172256
• ISBN10: 087417225X
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nevada Pr

Summary

This expanded edition of The Other California, originally published in 1990, contains nineteen essays (six of them new to this collection) on the landscape, literature, and life in the Great Central Valley of California. The Valley, a vast, flat patchwork of fields and orchards, has become the richest farming region in the history of the world. It also has a rich literary tradition: William Saroyan, Joan Didion, William Everson, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gary Soto, and Richard Rodriguez were all raised in this agricultural heartland. Haslam's collection represents the experience of living in the Valley through a variety of writings; some are personal, some regional, others literary. Many of these essays were originally published in national magazines; as a group, they offer readers a fine collection of writings on the landscape and literature of California's Great Central Valley.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
The Other California	1	(16)
The Lake That Will Not Die	17	(14)
The Water Game	31	(6)
The Kern, My River	37	(18)
California's Literary Landscape	55	(17)
Other Voices, Other Lives	72	(15)
The Grapes of Wrath: A Book That Stretched My Soul	87	(9)
Father Comes Home	96	(9)
What about the Okies?	105	(19)
Oil Town Rumble: The Young Men of Taft	124	(11)
William Saroyan and the Critics	135	(12)
Remembering Hutch	147	(10)
Bronzing the Valley	157	(12)
The Bakersfield Sound	169	(6)
Leon Patterson's Short Season	175	(6)
Oildale	181	(10)
The Home	191	(9)
Visions of the Valley	200	(8)
Other Californians	208	(11)
Credits	219