My California
In Novelist Edan Lepucki’s Home State, the History Is Fictional, the Terrain Is Otherworldly, and the Population Is United by Difference
In the story about myself, I was born in Santa Monica, in a rental on Sunset Ave. (yes, Avenue, not Boulevard). Early February, which is a bleak month elsewhere, but not in L.A. In my mind, I conjure the salty air, the white Volkswagen Rabbit in the driveway, and my mother’s round belly. My family has recently moved here from small town New Jersey.
A decade after I’m born, on another street in L.A., farther from the beach, a neighbor will take a camcorder to my front door. I answer, …
