Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir

· W. W. Norton & Company
5.0
3 reviews
Ebook
208
Pages

About this ebook

"Infinitely moving and powerful, just dead-on right, and absolutely original." —Joan Didion

Since its publication in 1996, Holy Land has become an American classic. In "quick, translucent prose" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times) that is at once lyrical and unsentimental, D. J. Waldie recounts growing up in Lakewood, California, a prototypical post-World War II suburb. Laid out in 316 sections as carefully measured as a grid of tract houses, Holy Land is by turns touching, eerie, funny, and encyclopedic in its handling of what was gained and lost when thousands of blue-collar families were thrown together in the suburbs of the 1950s. An intensely realized and wholly original memoir about the way in which a place can shape a life, Holy Land is ultimately about the resonance of choices—how wide a street should be, what to name a park—and the hopes that are realized in the habits of everyday life.

Ratings and reviews

5.0
3 reviews
danstune
March 17, 2019
I remember growing up in the same suburban city he writes about in this captivating story. It is creatively written and compelling in its grasp of this post war baby boomer housing development that was so fun to grow up in. We had great schools, wonderful families and recreation was always right around the corner. Lakewood, CA was a great idea that will not likely ever be emulated in just the same manner. I recommend this for anyone interested in the idealism of a simpler time.
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About the author

D. J. Waldie still lives in the tract house he writes about. He has received a Whiting Writers Award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, among other honors.

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