Pochada has written a novel alive with empathy for the dispossessed and detailed descriptions of the California landscape, with a little of the film Crash thrown in. Toggling back and forth, the narrative eventually shows how events in the past affect the present, then brings the characters together as each enacts one last desperate attempt at self-salvation. There, Britt becomes involved with the healer’s teenaged twin sons, who go on to two different destinies. The novel then jumps back to 2006, when Britt, a young tennis player running from a tragic mistake, ends up at a ranch in Twentynine Palms presided over by a charismatic healer. to reconnect with his absent mother, who is living in Skid Row, and Blake, a drifter searching for the woman who killed his traveling companion several years ago. Readers also meet Ren, a young man just out of juvie in Brooklyn who has come to L.A. Stuck in traffic, Tony, a married lawyer, spots a naked man streaking between cars and becomes obsessed with finding out who he is. Pochoda’s third novel (after Visitation Street) uses a 2010 traffic jam as the springboard for an exploration of the rootless existence of marginal SoCal lives.
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