Wonder Valley

He is almost beautiful--running with the San Gabriels over one shoulder, the rise of the Hollywood Freeway as it arcs above the Pasadena Freeway over the other. He is shirtless, the hint of swimmer's muscle rippling below his tanned skin, his arms pumping in a one-two rhythm in sync with the beat of his feet. There is a chance you envy him.
* * *
His expression is midmarathon serene, focused on the goal and not yet overwhelmed by the distance. He shows no strain. But the woman in the battered soft-top convertible will say he looked drugged. The man in a souped-up hatchback claims he was crazy-high, totally loco, you know what I mean. A couple of teenage girls driving an SUV way beyond their pay grade insist that, although they barely show more noticed him, he looked like a superhero, but not one of the cool ones.

This is a book about running away. We won't figure out until later in the book who the naked runner is or what he's running from, but we quickly meet a cast of other runners.

Tony, who gets out of his car and follows the naked runner, is running from his high-pressure life as a lawyer, father, and husband, who never quite measures up to anyone's standards.
Britt, who we meet four years earlier, is running from a past that she won't reveal until later, and finds herself in the midst of a bizarre cult/chicken farm commune.
Blake and Sam, characters who would fit into any grit lit novel, are running from the long arm of the law, while Blake tries to outrun the violence that always follows them.
Owen, son of cult leader/chicken farmer Patrick, is running away from the chaos that his life has become since moving to the desert. His twin brother, James, would like to run back to L.A. with his mom.
Ren has traveled across the country in search of his mother, Laila, who ran away to California while he was in juvie in New York.

As the story jumps back and forth between 2010 stories of Tony and Ren and the 2006 stories of Britt at the Howling Tree Ranch and Blake and Sam traversing the desert, the connections between all of these disparate runners are slowly revealed in a symphony of the desperate and downtrodden. Some of these characters do despicable things in their attempts at flight, but Ms. Pochoda manages to stir at least a tiny bit of sympathy even for the worst of them. And the more innocent among them will break your heart.

Read by book group, August 2019. show less

I’m of two very different minds about this book. The writing is fascinating and handles a wide range of emotions and situations very well, but my personal gut-reaction to its depiction of living on the streets of LA’s Skid Row was so desperately depressing, that it made me most uncomfortable about my future possibilities.

One of the characters goes searching for his mother who lives on these streets. After finding her, the nest egg hidden in his socks was lost when he was beaten and rolled, aka mugged. Granted, it was never a well-thought-out plan of redemption, especially when another flaw was exposed, she didn’t want to be “saved.” This situation also allows Pochoda to introduce a whole host of “colorful” characters show more living out there lives there, and she gives the reader a good feel for the streets.

But no matter where this book later takes its readers, its most memorable scene starts the book. Before we learn about the darker side of sunny affluent Southern California, Ivy Pochoda starts the book off brilliantly with one man running. The freeways are at a standstill with people all needing to be somewhere else, when a stark-naked man shows his independence, not just from clothing, but from all the rules and traffic by running freely by the trapped drivers. As angry and tense people sit steaming in their cars, he runs wherever he wants. He becomes a symbol of escaping not just our cars, but many of the problems of our modern culture. One commuter watched him run by, felt some tug of a kinship, climbed out, and ran after him in his business clothes. In the end, the clothed runner is busted by the police, and spends time in jail. Yeah, our author gave us this potential relief from the oppressive urban landscape, only to quickly crush it in a cell. The man may lose his job and wife over that sympathetic run. He was filmed by countless people on their phones, and his daughter shows him that he’s all over the news following the naked runner, the free runner who remained free from the police.

In an extremely well-done bit of writing, our author plays out a number of stories, with some very memorable characters, and then returns to that naked man running in traffic. We learn who he is, and why he ended up eventually running to the beach. This novel deserves to become a classic of LA noir.

I finished this novel on a patio under the northern California sun, with a lemon tree packed full of blossoms and buzzing bees, and some relaxing wind chimes playing in the distance. The ominous and threatening scenes in Skid Row overwhelmed some of my enjoyment of this powerful and curiously written book. Uncomfortable would be the key term in my mind, but anxious, unsettling, depressing, hopeless, deadly, and pathetic also come to mind. This book did what it did excellently, but I found much of what it did far too uncomfortable for me. Though the book ends on a sunny southern California beach, this book’s soul is dark and troubled. It’s a unique experience that will long be remembered. show less

Take the butterfly effect and apply it to gritty neighborhoods in L.A. Add drugs, long-held grievances, a commune in the desert and a nod to the Cain and Abel story; mix with guilt and chicken gore and you have this novel. Worth it for the ending which solves nothing but makes a profound statement on life ... especially when the desire to run from everything strikes.

Intertwining stories form the core of this novel, which opens and closes with scenes that come close to uniting the divergent strands of the story. The book was easy enough to read, but I never felt truly invested in the story and I was deeply annoyed with one character in particular (Tony, because wanting to be a naked man running through L.A. traffic is just as ridiculous as the perfect family life his wife craves). Okay enough as a read, but I was happy to move on to other books.

The hot, dry setting is palpable. I loved Wonder Valley from the opening scene where the traffic is driving everyone crazy. It brings back memories of the opening scene of LaLaLand - maybe the defining setting of modern day California - stuck in traffic... and what "being stuck" drives people to do.... Each of Pochoda's characters are driven to their personal edges, and then what happens when their lives intersect is even more charged. A great read, with edgy language and imagery, I recommend this book highly.

A man is running down the Hollywood freeway, he is completely nude, seemingly without a care in the world. As the cars sit in the usual crawling traffic, another man, a man on impulse will leave his car sitting in traffic and take off running, following the naked man. This is the beginning of this novel, which will take us from the streets of Los Angeles, to skid row and out to a desert commune with a divergent group of characters.

THey are lost souls, trying to escape either something the have done, or do not understand where their lives took a wrong turn, hopeful still that they can turn it around. Gritty and powerful story telling at its best. Street people and the fierce way they guard their spots, try to look out for each there. A show more commune run by a man who says he has answers, a healer of the physche, a married man with two twin teenage sons. Two drifters, with a capacity for violence and a man who can't escape a past mistake. All will come together, their stories converge in strange ways. All want to survive, to thrive though all will not be given the chance.

For those squeamish about the killing of chickens, though they are killed for food, I suggest skimming chapter four. Other than that I found this book to be wonderfully written, a dark yet hopeful street read. It reminded me in tone and feeling of [book:Gold Fame Citrus|24612148], though this is contemporary and not post apocalyptic.

ARC from book browse. show less

A compelling novel about family and friends and moral responsibility and the role of drugs and alcohol play in some people’s lives. Although a number of the characters live morally problematic lives, Pochoda portrays them with a compassion and empathy that enabled me to understand the reasons why they might make the choices they did. It is not written chronologically, but it was still (most of the time) clear where in time the characters were. Vividly written, it is a great psychological novel.