We first met Avery in two of the stories featured in Dana Johnson's awardwinning collection Break Any Woman Down. As a young girl, she and her family escape the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West Covina. This average life, filled with school, trips to 7Eleven to gawk at Tiger Beat magazine, and family outings to Dodger Stadium, is soon interrupted by a past she cannot escape, personified in the guise of her violent cousin Keith.
When Keith moves in with her family, he triggers a series of events that will follow Avery throughout her life: to her studies at USC, to her burgeoning career as a painter and artist, and into her relationship with a wealthy Italian who sequesters her in his glasswalled house in the Hollywood Hills. The past will intrude upon Avery's first gallery show, proving her mother's adage: Every goodbye aint gone. The dualnarrative of Elsewhere, California illustrates the complicated history of African Americans across the rolling basin of Los Angeles.
- ISBN10 158243784X
- ISBN13 9781582437842
- Publish Date 12 June 2012 (first published 1 January 2012)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Counterpoint
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 288
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781582437842