Frantic transmissions to and from Los Angeles : an accidental memoir / Kate Braverman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Braverman, Kate.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Braverman, Kate.

Authors, American--Biography.

Authors, American.

Los Angeles (Calif.)--Biography.

Los Angeles (Calif.).

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

217 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Saint Paul, Minn. : Graywolf Press, [2006]

Summary:

Braverman grew up in Los Angeles in the late 1950s when glitz was just beginning to be manufactured. It wasn't a destination city yet. It was the end of the line, the last outpost with an ocean view.

Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles chronicles the trajectory of Braverman's Left Coast generation with a voice of singular power. She was an antiwar and feminist activist in Berkeley, a punk poet, a single mother in the East L.A. barrio, and a woman in and out of recovery at AA meetings. In her 40s, Braverman left Los Angeles for a 6-year odyssey in a 150-year-old farmhouse in New York's Allegheny Mountains.

In wide-ranging transmissions, Braverman deftly contrasts the social histories of Los Angeles with her new, traditional, and isolated rural community; describes the effects of the changing seasons on sun-informed psyche; and is astonished that a remote dwelling surrounded by an apple orchard can offer surprising consolations and disappointments.

Library Journal calls Braverman a "literary genius"; Rolling Stone describes her as having the "power and intensity you don't see much outside of rock and roll." Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles is an eccentric and profoundly daring view of social and individual transformation, equal parts history, hallucination, stand-up comedy monologue, travelogue, and philosophy.

Contents:

Judge's Statement / Robert Polito 3

Fusion City 9

Escaping Los Angeles: Incantations and Magic 27

Escaping Los Angeles: Uncle Irving's Advice 49

Transmission to Los Angeles #1 65

Transmission to Los Angeles #2 79

Transmission to Los Angeles #3 93

Transmission to Los Angeles #4 109

Transmission to Los Angeles #5 123

Transmission to Los Angeles #6 137

The Collective Voice of Los Angeles Speaks: Marilyn Monroe 155

Hunting and Trapping Aunt Sarah 167

P.S. House for Sale 191.

ISBN:

1555974384 :

OCLC:

63127020