> "The Cracked Earth" by John Shannon -
lots
>of earthquake stuff in there - was the latest
(actually I wonder why anyone
>would live there)
>
>Carrie
Carrie, I think you've actually listed most of the reasons we
DO live here - and quite a few of the reasons writers are
drawn to write about this place. We have the best natural
special effects in the country and the newspapers are chock
full of gnarly story material. What's not to love?
TL
Point taken. I was really struck in the Shannon book by how
the Angelenos took the aftershocks in stride. I don't know
how true-to-life this was, but it has to be to some degree -
because, as mentioned, people actually do still live there.
Here in Virginia, where all the milk flies off the shelf as
soon as anybody whispers "snow" it's hard to conceive of
voluntarily living in a place where the earth might just
crack open under you without warning. I wonder about the
correspondence between the WWII/Cold War era and the
population shift to California. Maybe if you grew up
accepting that Europe was in flames or the the Russians could
blow you off the face of the earth any instant, the relative
risk of quakes didn't seem so scary. Still, in the South we
like the earth to stay put. Of course, there's my dad's
cousin who migrated to Southern California in the 80s and
came back east in the mid-90s cause he was scared of the big
one. Came back and settled in Tennessee right over the New
Madrid fault, to be precise - but that one hasn't done
anything for a while so he feels safe, like the campers on
Mount St. Helens I guess. So one of these days the Southeast
is gonna have the Big One and the Californians are gonna
laugh their heads off, hey?
Well, speaking of, what other LA writers have incorporated
quakes or other natural disasters? I remember Connelly
writing about quake damage to Harry's house in the Last
Coyote, and Crais talking about fires and mudslides in "LA
Requiem."
It's a crazy place, and I'm really enjoying all the comments;
Kerry, your comments about the mythic and real significance
of LA in American culture are very intriguing and, I think,
dead on. Thinking, however lame this makes me, of the Eagles
song "The Last Resort" (no, not Hotel California, I won't be
that obvious" - the title describing what LA is in more ways
than one.
Carrie
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