Southland (e-book) (used book) | Nina Revoyr | bookbook.eu

Description

In Southland, her award-winning second novel, Nina Revoyr brings us a compelling story of race, love, murder, and history against the backdrop of Los Angeles. Southland explores the fragile understandings and sometimes painful misunderstandings that occur across the lines of race and culture. A young Japanese American woman, Jackie Ishida, is in her last semester of law school when her grandfather, Frank Sakai, dies unexpectedly. Frank was a veteran of World War II who, many years before, had owned a store in the Crenshaw district, one of the first racially mixed areas in the city and now the heart of L.A.'s black community. While trying to fulfill a request from his will, Jackie discovers that four black teenagers were killed in the store during the Watts riots of 1965---and that the murders were never reported or solved. Along with James Lanier, a cousin of one of the victims, she tries to piece together the story of the boys' deaths. In the process, Jackie unearths the long-held secrets of her family's history---and her own.