Haslam's Valley
Publication Date:
2005
Format:
- Book: Fiction
Winner of: 2006 Josephine Miles National Literary Award
This career-spanning collection of fiction and non-fiction will introduce readers to Haslam's world: rural and small-town California, non-stereotypical and richly populated. His writing, like his perceptions, works against the Golden State's stereotype, so instead of tan blondes and hot tubs he writes of people struggling to survive — gritty Chicanos, Armenian farmers, Hmong laborers — in the midst of the richest agricultural region in the history of the world. Reviewer Jonah Raskin calls it "often ignored, largely forgotten landscape on the far side of the California dream."
Gerald Haslam picks up where Mark Twain left off in this career-spanning collection of stories and essays brimming with life—only here is Kern County instead of Calaveras, Oildale instead of Nevada City, a great alligator hunt instead of a celebrated jumping frog.
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"While Haslam's stories entertain, his essays gesture at the sweeping diversity of the Central Valley and the richness of community to be found there. Here too is a darker side of California's heartland, where a Japanese family bids good-bye to an America they thought they knew, and where Okies are shunned as second-class citizens. Haslam tackles problems of racism, social class, and environmental issues that are plaguing the Valley, as well as crafting whimsical tales full of local color." — ValleyHistory.org |
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Haslam's Valley was published in 2005 by Heyday; copies of Haslam's Valley are now available through Amazon as either the original book, or as an eBook [Click Here!]. |
