Customer Reviews

Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir

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Though subtitled "a suburban memoir", D.J. Waldie's Holy Land is a lot more than that. It is a history of the concept of suburbia, a portrait of a specific place, a chronicle of one man's relationship to that place. Formally, it is a collection of 316 prose poems, plus photographs. There is no other book like it.

You don't have to be a suburbanite or a suburban exile to appreciate Waldie's incisive and insightful writing, nor do you need to be particularly interested in the tale being told. Like most truly great books, Holy Land fuses itself to your mind regardless of what is already there. The tiny chapters accumulate, and once you have read a few, reverberations begin, harmonies and discords, and soon the whole becomes much greater than the single parts. It is a thrilling reading experience.

I taught this book as the last reading in an undergraduate course on Western suburban history. The students responded with tremendous enthusiasm. They recognized much that was familiar in Waldie's strange hometown (a strangeness common to suburbs all over the West). This book crystallized a feeling of loss for many students. Suburbs like Lakewood, or like the tract house developments going up today all over the region and nation, feel emptied of history for the children who grow up there. Their names (Lakewood?) like their green lawns are imposed, divorced from the land's human and natural history. Children feel this and they know something is missing. This book opened up the opportunity for students to express their own feelings and experiences of suburban life.

Note I also recommend you see the wonderful poetry of Kevin Hearle, _Each Thing We Know is Changed Because We Know It_ (1994)

I can't be nearly as eloquent as the other reviewers but I found this to be a truly powerful book. My WWII-generation parents bought their first house in Lakewood in 1952 and lived there for 15 years. I have always had a fascination with Lakewood, and as corny as it may seem, always felt a kind of spiritual connection to the place. While certainly an in-depth look at the history of "my city", Waldie just as expertly explores issues such as existence and mortality. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Holy Land is a work which reflects. Like a mirror, it reflects those of us who have grown up in suburbia. It shows how the planned community has shaped our lives and our identities. Who we are is largely defined by those who have laid out the grid work of our neighborhoods. It also reflects the historical accidents which brought suburbs into being. Would suburbs have been necessary without the Great Depression, World War II, the automobile or the dust bowl? It is emotionally reflective because the writing style and the content causes the reader to pause and reflect upon the neighborhood grids, and patterns which have shaped and defined the reader. It is spiritually reflective because the content forces the spiritual questions, "Is there anything more to life?" "Is life really nothing more than surviving in a landscape which is a grid designed by a developer who's primary purpose was to make a profit?" If the reader's answer is "no" then I suppose Holy Land is a depressing piece of non-fiction. It is also spiritually reflective because it illustrates how humans define space. Through human definition some space becomes sacred, other space becomes desirable and other space becomes functional. The reader is forced to reflect upon how the space in which their life is experienced is defined. In its very size and shape Holy Land is reflective of suburbia. A book that can be read before the 8:00 p.m. prime time begins. A book without strings attached. A book of poignant memories to which all veterans of suburbia can relate. This book however should not be read in a single sitting, although that would be very easy to do. I recommend that the reader read passages and then go for a walk or a drive through their neighborhood and reflect upon their own life and neighborhood. Then return back to the book and read some more If nothing else it will be a reflective experience.

I live in Signal Hill, right next to Lakewood. On Saturday mornings I like to get up early and get a 40 of Olde English and ride my old english 3 speed bicycle around the quiet streets of Lakewood while sipping my beer. There is an erie sense of peace and contentment that lives in this place. It's foggy usually at this time of year, and big crows caw and flap from street to street and wire to wire. big trees sit silently, there hardly ever seems to be any wind. I ride along sipping my beer, driving right up the middle of seemingly abandoned suburban streets, never bothered by cops as I would if I drove up the street drinking beer from a bottle at 8 in the morning over in Long Beach. Indeed, the only signs of life are the crows and the occaisional dog barking from behind a fence. Mr. Waldie has recreated this strange world perfectly in the pages of his book.

I have thrust this book into the hands of every other person I know. I can't remember the last time I did that. Unless you grew up in a custom home in an exclusive old neighborhood, this book is about your life and you must not let this slim volume pass. In a spare, haunting style - in fact, no chapter is longer than a page - Mr. Waldie stuns and soothes the reader, all the while illuminating and explaining the sordid underbelly of the American homebuilding industry. Mr. Waldie grew up in the same tract neighborhood where he still lives in the same house his parents purchased nearly fifty years ago. Now, he is a city official in that same mass produced town, Lakewood, California. Mr. Waldie explicates the convoluted manner that the tract home builders entwine into local politics to squeeze out every dime from the raw land. Here are answers to questions which you never realized you had, but which you will never forget. With the artistry of a poet, Waldie makes the reader "see" the underground wonderworld of water into which Southern California sinks taproots to drain ancient riverbeds a half mile below the urban sprawl that is Los Angeles. This is a rare treat. I guarantee that you will be pressing this book into the hands of friends just so you can have someone to discuss it with.

I was raised in the suburbs, thought I hated them, and at 18 headed for "the big city" as so many young people do. I have lived in a number of them ever since, never returing to the pristine confines of suburbia. So the concept of the suburbs holds a special place in my heart as a place of the mysteries of youth, the possibility for adventure, simple beauty and the pains of growing up (which as one ages ages miraculously become fond memories). To this day I sometimes venture out in the suburbs of my city and just let myself float dreamily along the wide streets, manicured lawns, high school basketball courts and shopping centers of these ignored and misunderstood lands. There is nothing like the sounds of lawnmowers on a sunny Sunday afternoon or the sounds of a baseball game played by children who think the world is theirs for the taking, that they will live forever, and that dreams come true or at least always have a fighting chance. This book, I think, captures all that through the recollections of the author of his hometown of Lakewood, CA. I have been there often enjoying just what he sees: the simple, quiet dignity of a people trying to carve out a slice of order amidst the chaos and uncertainty of the city and the universe. This book captures that in a very clever series of short chapters about the history of Lakewood and his experiences as a lifelong resident. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I was so very glad that I happened upon it. I cannot imagine anyone, especially American, not finding at least some value in this book. And I would also recommend it for those outside of the United Stated who want a deeper understanding of the way most Americans have and continue to live in this century and the last. This is travel guide like no other. An absolute treasure.

In southern California, land and water were everything in the 20th century. The author did an excellent job researching the tract house expansion from the construction details to the social impact they had family lifestyles. Especially interesting, was the explantation of the water rights and development of Artesia. All the familiar landmarks of the LA basin suddenly take on new meaning.

I grew up in the rural Midwest and have always been put off by suburbs. Admittedly, this book is clearly and economically written. Admittedly, it is thoroughly researched concerning the land and water on which Lakewood stands. Yet,the life at which the book hints seems so restricted, so circumscribed, and so stereotyped that I have a difficult time understanding the appeal of this book to so many readers. Is it that someone has at last accurately described their poverty of experience?

D. J. Waldie's Holy Land: a Suburban Memoir is so beautifully and carefully written that I found myself reading segments out loud for the simple pleasure of savoring the language. While writing of his life in a housing tract in Lakewood, California, Mr. Waldie, writing in short and interweaving passages and segments, examines his everyday life in an almost commonplace suburb with precision and grace. His family, neighbors and friends emerge as people we may know. His house has a familiarity to many of us, even though we have never been there. Mr. Waldie, however, sees everyday life so clearly and makes even the "how to" of putting together a stucco tract home so interesting that I could not put down this book and felt a great sadness when I had finished. His is a lovely and important story about a very smart and gentle man who cares deeply about aspects of Los Angeles history and is eager to hear stories of our Southern California future.