Dana Johnson. (2012). Elsewhere, California: A Novel. Catapult.

Dana Johnson. 2012. Elsewhere, California: A Novel. Catapult.

Dana Johnson, Elsewhere, California: A Novel. Catapult, 2012.

Dana Johnson. Elsewhere, California: A Novel. Catapult, 2012.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/BDF/77C/97/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/BDF/77C/97/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781619020832
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 674982
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781619020832
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 674982
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781582437842

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Dana Johnson

title

Elsewhere, California

dateAdded

2016-06-16T18:44:00-04:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=966710
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Elsewhere California A Novel

crossRefId

966710

subtitle

A Novel

id

bdf77c97-76e8-4ed4-84c1-0312fcb15173

starRating

3.8

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: ElsewhereCalifornia_9781619020832_966710
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 839772
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781619020832
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 674982
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 6/1/2012
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
        • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/1486-1/BDF/77C/97/ElsewhereCalifornia9781619020832.epub
     2. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: ElsewhereCalifornia_966710
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 674982
     2. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00858VRT2
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 6/1/2012
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
        • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/1486-1/BDF/77C/97/ElsewhereCalifornia9781619020832.epub
     2. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: ElsewhereCalifornia_9781619020832_966710
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781619020832
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 674982
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 6/1/2012
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
        • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/1486-1/BDF/77C/97/ElsewhereCalifornia9781619020832.epub
     2. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: family
2. • value: relationships
3. • value: Friendship
4. • value: literary fiction
5. • value: romance
6. • value: African American Literature
7. • value: Urban Fiction
8. • value: parenting
9. • value: Fiction
10. • value: mothers
11. • value: mental health
12. • value: novels
13. • value: classic
14. • value: marriage
15. • value: love
16. • value: families
17. • value: Short Stories
18. • value: mystery
19. • value: Drama
20. • value: Women's Fiction
21. • value: Horror
22. • value: Adoption
23. • value: magical realism
24. • value: Inspirational
25. • value: Contemporary Romance
26. • value: feminism
27. • value: African American
28. • value: Chick Lit
29. • value: literature
30. • value: fiction books
31. • value: fantasy
32. • value: realistic fiction
33. • value: African American fiction
34. • value: african american books
35. • value: african american novels
36. • value: book club books
37. • value: realistic fiction books
38. • value: books fiction

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Johnson, Dana
   • bioText: Dana Johnson is the author of Break Any Woman Down, Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and the novel Elsewhere, California. Both books were nominees for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Born and raised in and around Los Angeles, she is an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California. Learn more at danajohnsonauthor.com.
   • name: Dana Johnson

imprint

Counterpoint

publishDate

2012-06-01T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Elsewhere, California

fullDescription

We first met Avery in two of the stories featured in Dana Johnson's award–winning collection Break Any Woman Down. As a young girl, she and her family escape the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West Covina. This average life, filled with school, trips to 7–Eleven to gawk at Tiger Beat magazine, and family outings to Dodger Stadium, is soon interrupted by a past she cannot escape, personified in the guise of her violent cousin Keith.
When Keith moves in with her family, he triggers a series of events that will follow Avery throughout her life: to her studies at USC, to her burgeoning career as a painter and artist, and into her relationship with a wealthy Italian who sequesters her in his glass–walled house in the Hollywood Hills. The past will intrude upon Avery's first gallery show, proving her mother's adage: Every goodbye aint gone. The dual–narrative of Elsewhere, California illustrates the complicated history of African Americans across the rolling basin of Los Angeles.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Lynell George, The Los Angeles Times
   • content: "Avery's evolution -- a black woman trying to claim her place -- is as heartbreaking as it is humorous, powerful as it is poignant, because Johnson so assertively confronts those complexities."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
   • content: "Johnson's Elsewhere, California is a clear–eyed jam on class, race, and love; sassy yet searing."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly, starred review
   • content: "In this debut novel, Johnson brilliantly knits the dual narratives together, maintaining a dynamic balance between nimble language and rowdy, vulnerable characters. The real achievement is the honest, compassionate, and unflinching willingness to honor teenage struggles for identity, confidence, and love while listening to Led Zeppelin and rooting for the Dodgers."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Michelle Huneven, author of Blame
   • content: "Reading Elsewhere, California, Dana Johnson's luminous, intelligent, linguistically dexterous first novel about growing up in Southern California, made me understand exponentially more about my own state, my own growing up, and the private lives of families in the homes all around me. An impressive, inspiring debut!"
5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 23, 2012
     Avery is nine when her family escapes L.A.’s gang violence and moves to the suburbs, becoming the only black people in the neighborhood. Feeling alienated, but impressionable, Avery adjusts by way of Tiger Beat, Shaun Cassidy collages, and a mouthy best friend. At 40, Avery has become a visual artist, her rich and sensual Italian boyfriend clearly instrumental in helping her find the self-acceptance that eluded her for so long. This wildly vivid novel unfolds, zigzagging between Avery’s past and present and exploring all the ways in which one continues to both haunt and electrify the other. Johnson, a California native and professor of English at the University of Southern California, introduced Avery in her Flannery O’Connor Award–winning story collection, Break Any Woman Down. In this debut novel, Johnson brilliantly knits the dual narratives together, maintaining a dynamic balance between nimble language and rowdy, vulnerable characters. The real achievement is the honest, compassionate, and unflinching willingness to honor teenage struggles for identity, confidence, and love while listening to Led Zeppelin and rooting for the Dodgers. A prologue that feels forced is instantly rendered unnecessary by the surefire language that explodes with chapter one. Agent: Rosalie Siegel.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 15, 2012
     When her father's passion for a better life moved the family from Los Angeles' 80th Street to West Covina, Avery Arlington liked the suburb's "promised stellar living." Now she's not so sure. Avery, once in suburbia, disconnects, pulled toward angst and rebellion by her new best friend, Brenna, yet ensnared by the hard-line rules of her uber-strict parents. Brenna is white, Avery African-American. Also in the mix: Avery's cousin, Keith, flitting between Avery's home and his single mother's house in Victorville--and between trouble and rebellion. The story shifts between Avery's childhood, descriptions and dialogue redolent of the rural south and of the 'hood, and the present day. Adult Avery lives in a Schnabel house wannabe in the moneyed hills of West Los Angeles. Avery graduated from USC--Johnson's comprehension of poor girl among the rich is superb--and satisfied her parents' ambitions. Soon after, she met and moved in with Massimo, an Italian immigrant and successful attorney. Avery holds a business degree, but her passion is art, both painting and collage, metaphorically symbolic of her self-constructed life, "putting together all my pieces of discarded things." As much as Avery's art represents the self she constructed, the shadow of Keith, thief and drug addict, hanging over and haunting her life, represents the oppression of choice, success and failure. Johnson's novel speaks to race, class and culture; white, black, Hispanic and immigrant; the world as it is, and as it should be. Meditative literary fiction, a near-dream-state reflection on the duality of life.

     COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

popularity

67

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/bdf77c97-76e8-4ed4-84c1-0312fcb15173/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

bdf77c97-76e8-4ed4-84c1-0312fcb15173

starRating

3.8

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/BDF/77C/97/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/BDF/77C/97/{BDF77C97-76E8-4ED4-84C1-0312FCB15173}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Fiction
2. • value: African American Fiction
3. • value: Literature

publishDateText

06/01/2012

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781582437842

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

We first met Avery in two of the stories featured in Dana Johnson's award–winning collection Break Any Woman Down. As a young girl, she and her family escape the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West Covina. This average life, filled with school, trips to 7–Eleven to gawk at Tiger Beat magazine, and family outings to Dodger Stadium, is soon interrupted by a past she cannot escape, personified in the guise of her violent cousin Keith.
When Keith moves in with her family, he triggers a series of events that will follow Avery throughout her life: to her studies at USC, to her burgeoning career as a painter and artist, and into her relationship with a wealthy Italian who sequesters her in his glass–walled house in the Hollywood Hills. The past will intrude upon Avery's first gallery show, proving her mother's adage: Every goodbye aint gone. The dual–narrative of Elsewhere, California illustrates the complicated history of...

sortTitle

Elsewhere California A Novel

crossRefId

966710

subtitle

A Novel

publisher

Catapult

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary
2. • code: FIC045000
   • description: Fiction / Family Life / General
3. • code: FIC049020
   • description: Fiction / African American & Black / Women