Analysis, photography and fiction combine in a bracing portrait of LA

Los Angeles is a city which has long thrived on the continual re-creation of own myth. In this extraordinary and original work, Norman Klein examines the process of memory erasure in LA. Using a provocative mixture of fact and fiction, the book takes us on an “anti-tour” of downtown LA, examines life for Vietnamese immigrants in the City of Dreams, imagines Walter Benjamin as a Los Angeleno, and finally looks at the way information technology has recreated the city, turning cyberspace into the last suburb.

“Klein clearly follows in [Mike] Davis’s wake, but develops a distinctive focus on the erasure of memory in and about the city.” — Times Literary Supplement

“Klein is a fine stylist, an engaging historian – is account of the way noir shaped the city is strikingly fresh.” — New Scientist

“Norman Klein is full of ideas, brilliant and beautifully expressed.” — Journal of American History

Norman M. Klein is a critic and historian of mass culture, editor of Fragile Moments: A History of Media-Induced Experience, and author of Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon from Verso. He teaches at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.

Praise for Norman Klein's previous work, Seven Minutes;
“Erudite, witty, comprehensive and just plain fun.” — Chuck Jones, Animation Director

“Should be on every toon fan's book-shelf.“ — Sight and Sound

352 pages
8 b/w photos


Cloth
ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 241 7
US$110 / £60 / CAN$121

Paper
ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 242 2
US$24.95 / £12.99 / CAN$27.50