Shaky Town
A Novel
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
In Shaky Town, Lou Mathews has written a timeless novel of working-class Los Angeles. A former mechanic and street racer, he tells his story in cool and panoramic style, weaving together the tragedies and glories of one of L.A.’s eastside neighborhoods. From a teenage girl caught in the middle of a gang war to a priest who has lost his faith and hit bottom, the characters in Shaky Town live on a dangerous faultline but remain unshakable in their connections to one another.
Like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Katherine Ann Porter’s Ship of Fools, Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, and Pat Barker’s Union Street, Shaky Town is the story of complicated, conflicted, and disparate characters bound together by place.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mathew's vibrant if uneven novel in stories (after L.A. Breakdown) tours a 1980s East Los Angeles neighborhood through the varied perspectives of its residents. Emiliano Gomez, the self-proclaimed "mayor" of Shaky Town who claims to have lived there since 1922, once worked as a carpenter for MGM, but was fired for drinking. In "Crazy Life," Emiliano's niece Dulcie convinces her boyfriend, Jesús "Chuey" Medina, to get out of a drive-by shooting rap by testifying against his friend "Sleepy" Chavez. Chuey ends up a junkie and is later murdered by Sleepy's little brother. In "Dona Anita," Emiliano's neighbor Mrs. Espinosa recounts Emiliano's many family tragedies. Later, Emiliano overcomes a decadeslong rift between Mrs. Espinosa and himself and gives a speech at her 75th birthday party. Less successful are sections focused on white high school boys causing trouble and a lengthy account of a priest who loses his faith. Emiliano reappears in a brilliant personal history of Chavez Ravine involving a curse his Aunt Lupe put on Dodger Stadium that comes to fruition when Shaky Town lives up to its name with an earthquake. It's a mixed bag, but the best pieces linger.
