LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS "L.A. is where you reside. Shaky Town is where you live." Welcome to Shaky Town, a place invisible on maps and found only in the secret heart of its citizens. In this masterwork of panoramic style, Lou Mathews-a former mechanic and street racer-weaves together the tragedies and glories of one eastside neighborhood in the 1980s. From a teenage girl caught in the middle of a gang war, to an Irish priest who has lost his faith and hit bottom, the characters in Shaky Town live on a dangerous fault line but remain unshakable in their connections to one another. A luminous achievement of peerless authenticity, Shaky Town captures the grit and gold of working-class Los Angeles and lays down Matthews's marker as one of the city's great chroniclers. Lou Mathews is the author of L.A. Breakdown and a longstanding instructor at UCLA Extension's acclaimed Creative Writing program. His stories have been published in ZZZYVYA, New England Review, Tin House, Black Clock, Paperback L.A. , and many fiction anthologies. Mathews is also a journalist, playwright, former restaurant critic, and passionate cook. He has received a Pushcart Prize, a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, and an NEA Fiction Fellowship, and is a recipient of the UCLA Extension Outstanding Instructor Award. Book specifications: Dimensions: 213 x 137 Author: Lou Mathews Cover type: Paperback Publishing Year: 2023 Publishing Month: 1 Pages: 228 Language: English Publisher: Tiger Van Books Weight: 281 g