L.A. Exile: A Guide to Los Angeles Writing 1932-1998

Fiction. Poetry. There are cities writers have sought as inspiration; Paris in the '20s, or New York or San Francisco in the '40s and '50s. Then there is Los Angeles, a place poets and writers have avoided or at least never expected to end up in. Once arrived, many found themselves remarkably productive, intrigued with the city and a life that often struggles to be heroically elsewhere. L.A. EXILE is a guide to the literature, the writers and the physical spaces that have made for what composer Igor Stravinsky called "splendid isolation". Ranging from the early-century writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Upton Sinclair to contemporary authors such as Gore Vidal and Frank Chin, L.A. EXILE offers a grand tour of America's great "lost city".