Name: Laura Mauler's review of West of the West by Mark Arax
Item: West of the West
Rating: 4
Author: Laura Mauler

Mark Arax

Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State

West of the West

Laura Mauler

I picked up this book thinking that it would be a glorification of California, something to match my enthusiasm for my adopted state (5 years and counting). Instead I found all of our sins laid out bare on the page. All the ugliness, all the disillusion, all the mean and hard and crazy. Looking now at all the quotes on the covers of the book, I have no idea where I got this notion of glorification. Probably I looked no further than that fantastic Teddy Roosevelt quote and plunked down my cash.

What I got from this book was the opposite of what I expected, and I loved every page of it. It was real, and it was riveting. Now I just have to find out who this Saroyan person is that the author keeps name-dropping.

Laura Mauler &
West of the West by Mark Arax

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Laura Mauler &West of the West by Mark Arax

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Laura Mauler &
West of the West by Mark Arax