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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 979.494 EAN: 9780312168643 ISBN: 0312168640 Label: St. Martin's Griffin Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 192 Publication Date: August 15, 1997 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Studio: St. Martin's Griffin Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: Welcome to Lakewood, California, the world's largest suburb and the subject of an oddly mesmerizing account of its creation by D. J. Waldie. Waldie describes how bean fields were drawn up, sectioned off and divided up--leaving tracts for small houses of similar design. The author changes while the land around him does, in a story of how people make places and, more so, places make people. Product Description: An exquisitely realized and wholly original memoir of growing up in blue-collar 1950s Lakewood, California, the quintessential post-world war II American suburb and the prototype for the countless tract developments that would follow. Lyrical, compassionate statement of the hard-won values of American suburban places. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Love the place, love the writingWhen a friend recommended Holy Land, he said, "It's about Lakewood!" I couldn't believe that someone had found something to say about the little suburb where we grew up. I bought the book out of curiosity; I wasn't expecting to find brilliant prose. But there it was. I savored reading this book. After work, I would make a cup of tea and go out to my back yard and read sections slowly, loving the language... and remembering the years of my childhood. Like many folks, I never realized ... Read More Rating:  - excellent comprehensive Los Angeles HistoryIn southern California, land and water were everything in the 20th century. The author did an excellent job researching the tract house expansion from the construction details to the social impact they had family lifestyles. Especially interesting, was the explantation of the water rights and development of Artesia. All the familiar landmarks of the LA basin suddenly take on new meaning. Rating: - Poetics of place and time in the Los Angeles PalimpsestD. J. Waldie's Holy Land: a Suburban Memoir is so beautifully and carefully written that I found myself reading segments out loud for the simple pleasure of savoring the language. While writing of his life in a housing tract in Lakewood, California, Mr. Waldie, writing in short and interweaving passages and segments, examines his everyday life in an almost commonplace suburb with precision and grace. His family, neighbors and friends emerge as people we may know. His house has a familiarity to many of ... Read More Rating: - Wow! Great BookI live in Lakewood with my husband and two (now grown) children. This book shares a lot of history that I was unaware of when we first moved here, and after reading it, I understand why Lakeood is as charming as it is. People stay here for generations. Parents live up the street from their children and their children's families. I have always loved it here and am very proud to call it "home". Rating: - a tour of a world very different than suburbs I knowWhen I read this book, I was surprised by not by how universal Lakewood is, but how little Lakewood resembles the suburbs I grew up with. In Lakewood, most blocks have sidewalks, streets have grids so you can walk to anyplace without going out of your way, and conveniences such as shopping are a long walk away- not exactly New Urbanism, but not exactly conventional modern sprawl either. Lakewood may be sprawl, but it is sprawl with a human face. By contrast, in Atlanta (where ... Read More |
