New L.A. fiction

In today's L.A. Times Calendar, Lynell George interviews three authors whose settings are fragments of the Los Angeles whole: Alan Rifkin (Signal Hill: Stories), Elizabeth Stromme (Joe's Word: An Echo Park Novel) and Dana Johnson (Break Any Woman Down, which is set in West Covina, Crenshaw and the "scuffed up ends of Hollywood").

Writes George:

By virtue of their rich sense of place, their characters' particular yearnings, they flesh out the picture. They consider corners of the region that usually fall off the big-screen projection of Los Angeles. Each, in its own way, helps to broaden our perceptions about what Los Angeles is and what it is to be an Angeleno.

They map a different sort of territory — both physical and psychological. Not just Hollywood wives and well-heeled, reckless youth — but the lives of car dealers, swimming pool contractors, hotel maids, roadies and beauticians. It's a Los Angeles just as valid, just as tangible because of its stubborn persistence.

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