Description
Book SynopsisFrom the paving of the Los Angeles River in 1938 and the creation of the G.I. Bill in 1944, to the construction of the Interstate Highway System during the late 1950s and the brownstoning movement of the 1970s, throughout the mid-20th-century the United States saw a wave of changes that had an enduring impact on the development of urban spaces. Focusing on the relationship between processes of demolition and restoration as they have shaped the modern built environment, and the processes by which memory is constructed, hidden, or remade in the literary text, this book explores the ways in which history becomes entangled with the urban space in which it plays out. Alice Levick takes stock of this history, both in the form of its externalised, concretised manifestation and its more symbolic representation, as depicted in the mid-20th-century work of a selection of American writers. Calling upon access to archival material and interviews with New York academics, authors, local historians a
Trade ReviewThis is a very comprehensive, detailed study with close readings of a variety of works, concentrating on Los Angeles and New York. Throughout, Levick provides suggestive insights into the way memory is constructed, suppressed or remade. * Literature & History *
Drawing on a creative and impressively constructed archive of interviews, novels, stories, and essays, Levick offers an illuminating meditation on the persistence of collective memory and history embedded within urban landscapes, art, and community. The book powerfully argues for how these accreted forms become a resource of resistance against urban modernity's creative destruction * Myka Tucker-Abramson, Assistant Professor in American Literature, University of Warwick, UK *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. The Garden and the Grid: DJ Waldie and Raymond Chandler in Lakewood and Los Angeles Chapter 2. The Imago City: Joan Didion, Hisaye Yamamoto and Alison Lurie in Los Angeles and Sacramento Chapter 3. The Suture: Marshall Berman and Robert Moses in the Bronx Chapter 4. The Palimpsest: Paula Fox and L.J. Davis in Brooklyn Conclusion References Index
