Bøger af Susan Straight

Faced with having to create a new life for herself after a devastating personal loss, the author takes a leap of faith and follows a vision she has had of working with young people in a province of China near the border with Southeast Asia. She has no idea what she will do or how she will do it, but goes with friends on a six month quest and ends up staying nearly 8 years. The book takes us on a poignant journey of discovery and connection leading to deep understanding of the Chinese culture and great love for the young people and minority villagers she comes in contact with. This is a book which challenges our notions of aging, of healing and of possibility in a time of great upheaval throughout the world. It poses the question of how one person can make a difference in bringing more love to the planet, in the face of fear.

"A wide and deep view of a dynamic, multiethnic Southern California . . . Susan Straight is an essential voice in American writing and in writing of the West." -The New York Times Book ReviewNamed a most anticipated book of March 2022 by the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and AltaFrom the National Book Award finalist Susan Straight, Mecca is a stunning epic tracing the intertwined lives of native Californians fighting for life and landJohnny Frías has California in his blood. A descendant of the state's indigenous people and Mexican settlers, he has Southern California's forgotten towns and canyons in his soul. He spends his days as a highway patrolman pulling over speeders, ignoring their racist insults, and pushing past the trauma of his rookie year, when he killed a man assaulting a young woman named Bunny, who ran from the scene, leaving Johnny without a witness. But like the Santa Ana winds that every year bring the risk of fire, Johnny's moment of action twenty years ago sparked a slow-burning chain of connections that unites a vibrant, complex cast of characters in ways they never see coming. In Mecca, the celebrated novelist Susan Straight crafts an unforgettable American epic, examining race, history, family, and destiny through the interlocking stories of a group of native Californians all gasping for air. With sensitivity, furor, and a cinematic scope that captures California in all its injustice, history, and glory, she tells a story of the American West through the eyes of the people who built it-and continue to sustain it. As the stakes get higher and the intertwined characters in Mecca slam against barrier after barrier, they find that when push comes to shove, it's always better to push back.

Susan Straight's most powerful novel yet is framed by two race riots: the little known Tulsa riots of the 1920s, in which white Tulsa burned down the town's black enclave; and the notorious L. A. riots of the 1990s.Straight's brilliant story of the effects of violence in America on three generations of a family is told through the lives of the Thompsons, a large clan who live in Treetown, above downtown Rio Seco, California, and operate a car towing and repair business. Patriarch Hosea is a proud man, and a hardened one, whose father was killed in the violence that erupted in Tulsa many years earlier. All Hosea's memories come flooding black with ferocious force when the bodies of two white women are found engulfed in flames in an abandoned car on his property. These are the first signs that someone wants Hosea off his land; it is up to his son Marcus, the only one of the six children of Hosea and his half-Mexican wife who can negotiate with the white world, to help the family hold on to their home and their livelihood.But it is only when Marcus' nephew Motrice-a young man infatuated with guns and the power that they bring- comes back to Rio Seco from gang-ridden Los Angeles that the real secrets of the bodies found on Thompson land are revealed, as Rio Seco erupts in the same wave of trashing and looting that has engulfed the nearby metropolis.The Gettin Place is a powerful portrait of a family struggling to defend its turf in a changing world, to hold on to the gettin place, the source from which they derive the tools for survival.

"e;A masterpiece."e; -Michael Connelly. "e;A heartbreaker from beginning to end."e; -Viet Thanh Nguyen. Named a Most Anticipated Book of March 2022 by the Los Angeles Times and AltaFrom the National Book Award finalist Susan Straight, Mecca is a stunning epic tracing the intertwined lives of native Californians fighting for life and landJohnny Frias has California in his blood. A descendant of the state's Indigenous people and Mexican settlers, he has Southern California's forgotten towns and canyons in his soul. He spends his days as a highway patrolman pulling over speeders, ignoring their racist insults, and pushing past the trauma of his rookie year, when he killed a man assaulting a young woman named Bunny, who ran from the scene, leaving Johnny without a witness. But like the Santa Ana winds that every year bring the risk of fire, Johnny's moment of action twenty years ago sparked a slow-burning chain of connections that unites a vibrant, complex cast of characters in ways they never see coming. In Mecca, the celebrated novelist Susan Straight crafts an unforgettable American epic, examining race, history, family, and destiny through the interlocking stories of a group of native Californians all gasping for air. With sensitivity, furor, and a cinematic scope that captures California in all its injustice, history, and glory, she tells a story of the American West through the eyes of the people who built it-and continue to sustain it. As the stakes get higher and the intertwined characters in Mecca slam against barrier after barrier, they find that when push comes to shove, it's always better to push back.

With a new introduction by the authorFinalist for the National Book Award: The story of a young mother deported and separated from her child, and the pair's efforts to locate each other years laterHighwire Moon narrates the journeys of a young mother and daughter divided. Serafina is a Mexican-Indian scraping by in Southern California; detained by immigration officials, she tragically lacks the English to tell them that Elvia, her three-year-old, is resting in a nearby car. After her deportation, Serafina tries in vain to return to the States, while Elvia must survive several foster homes, later to be reclaimed by her father. By the time Elvia is fifteen, she's pregnant and surrounded by drugs. She decides to find her mother across the borderat the very same time that Serafina goes in search of her.Highwire Moon is gritty and affecting, a family saga that couldn't be of more relevance today.

A historic novel about a young woman forced to grow up quickly, and whose lifeas well as those of her twin sonschanges with the current of the times Beginning in the late 1950s, this novel tells the story of Marietta Cook, a tall girl growing up in Pine Gardens, a Gullah-speaking village in South Carolina. When Marietta's mother passes, she heads to Charleston in search of her uncleonly to find a lover and return pregnant with twins two years later. She raises her sons back home in the low country before moving the family to Charleston, where she takes a growing interest in football and the civil rights movement. The boys grow huge and talented at the game, playing pro football in California. A new world and new travails await, but Marietta's great resilience endures. This is the life of an extraordinary soul, and a novel with a beautifully vivid sense of place.

A young fireman battles to provide for his familyand struggles to avoid the traps of crime and poverty that surround him Darnell Tucker has more to think about than the average twenty-year-old. A resident of impoverished Rio Seco, California, he works part time as the lone black member of the fire department and will soon be a father. Though he loves his job, cutbacks to the state budget force him to search for new work, and the low-paying positions he finds rival firefighting in their peril. On two of the jobs, he's mistaken for a criminal by the police; coming home from another, he's shot at by a gang. His path blocked by economics, institutionalized racism, and the dangers of the place where he lives, how can he provide for his daughter, who has changed his life? Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights is a stark and thoroughly convincing portrait of life on the margins.

Full of defiance and tenderness, Aquaboogie chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of the residents of Rio Seco. In “Aquaboogie,” art student Nacho finances his class out East by working as a janitor, subject to torment by his white coworkers. In “Back,” elderly Pashion sleeps wrapped around the body of her dying husband L. C., all the while recalling their 49 years of marriage and thinking about the sleeping pills she has secreted away for when life becomes unbearable. In “The Box,” Shawan carries her radio everywhere; since her best friend was gunned down, music is the only thing that can get her through the day. In these and other stories in this powerful collection, the author gives voice to those on the margins while demonstrating her great affection for her characters.