An exquisitely realized and wholly original memoir of growing up in blue-collar 1950s Lakewood, California, the quintessential post-world war II American suburb and the prototype for the countless tract developments that would follow. Lyrical, compassionate statement of the hard-won values of American suburban places.
D. J. Waldie was named one of the city's most influential interpreters by "Los Angeles Magazine" in 2006 and called "a gorgeous distiller of architectural and social history" by the New York Times in 2007.
In 2008, novelist and memoirist Patricia Hampl, writing in "Commonweal," said of Holy Land: A Sunurban Memoir, "(It) captivated me when it first came out. It still astonishes. It's no easier to describe now than it was before it became a classic of American autobiography. Waldie's range is staggering - from intimate, touchingly respectful revelations of family life and spiritual reality to a precise history of land development and public policy regarding water use (and don't imagine this is the boring part). Waldie has written nothing less than the spiritual autobiography of the midcentury American suburban dream. It proves to be a subject worthy of tragedy and of his remarkable elegy."
A screenplay (adapted from Holy Land by the author) will be produced by James Franco in 2013-2014.
D. J. Waldie is a contributing writer at Los Angeles magazine and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times.
