Revoyr's novel takes place in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, following two families-one black, one Japanese-over several decades.

When I started working on Your House Will Pay, I hoped to write something that was half as smart and affecting as Southland. Los Angeles Times, named one of the 20 Essential LA Crime Books It is the kind of saga that often epitomizes and shocks LA-friction and violence between races and cultures. New York Times Book Review, Ross MacDonald on Where Noir Lives in the City of Angels Jackie Ishida's grandfather had a store in Watts where four boys were killed during the riots in 1965, a mystery she attempts to solve. Vallaire Wallace in Electric Lit on The Novel That Shows Us How to Face our Past to Change Our Future Stephanie Cha (of the LARB) in GQ on The Greatest Crime Novelists on Their Favorite Crime Novels EverĪ story about injustice dressed up as a detective novel, Southland reminds us that activism is both an ongoing project and a deeply personal choice. It's a powerful book, one that I think about often, as well as a huge influence on my work. The central mystery is the death of four black boys in a Japanese-American man's store during the Watts Rebellion of 1965. It's a brilliant, ambitious, moving literary crime novel about two families in South Los Angeles and their tangled history between the 1930s and the 1990s. I'm an LA native with a lot of love for LA crime fiction, but instead of preaching to the noir choir about The Long Goodbye, I'd like to gush about Southland by Nina Revoyr.

Southland nina revoyr sparknotes