About the Book In Shaky Town, Lou Mathews has written a timeless novel of working-class Los Angeles. A former mechanic and street racer, he tells his story in cool and panoramic style, weaving together the tragedies and glories of one of L.A.s eastside neighborhoods. From a teenage girl caught in the middle of a gang war to a priest who has lost his faith and hit bottom, the characters in Shaky Town live on a dangerous faultline but remain unshakable in their connections to one another. Like Sherwood Andersons Winesburg, Ohio, John Steinbecks Cannery Row, Katherine Ann Porters Ship of Fools, Gloria Naylors The Women of Brewster Place, and Pat Barkers Union Street, Shaky Town is the story of complicated, conflicted, and disparate characters bound together by place.--Provided by publisher. Book Synopsis -Engaging characters who live on the non-glamorous side of L.A. -Like Sherwood Andersons Winesburg, Ohio, Gloria Naylors The Women of Brewster Place, and Pat Barkers Union Street, Shaky Town tells the stories of people linked by place -Compelling cover art from street artist Steve Powers (aka ESPO) -Mathews is a much-respected, much-loved writing teacher and writer who has impacted a generation or two of successful writers Review Quotes One of the best books of fiction to have come out in recent memory . . . [ Shaky Town ] is one of those rare works that carries an assuring integrity, showing evidence of a writer who understands the bafflement that is the human condition and has the capacity to articulate inchoate sadness and hurt and anger. - ZYZZYVA This novel is a particular triumph of storytelling, each installment more acute, more poignant, more revealing than the last, each story crackling with its own distinct energy and intelligence. The characters are jumpy at the margins--volatile, mournful, funny as hell--with the little-known warrens and alleyways of Los Angeles teeming all around them. Mathews is a master, and perhaps contemporary fictions best-kept secret. --Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You but Ive Chosen Darkness In telling this story of the Los Angeles hes known, served, and loved, Lou Mathews does more than add to the conversation writers have created about this city, hes created a peerlessly detailed and empathetic work of art. --J. Ryan Stradal, author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota No one writes, or maybe ever has written, as well as Mathews about the local streets and their navigations, liberations, and traps, as brilliantly demonstrated in these stories. --Steve Erickson, author of Shadowbahn Shaky Town is ultimately an embrace of all the people--the respectable and the outcast, the casualties and the survivors, the sinners and the sinned against--that make up a Los Angeles at once pitiless and tender, horrible and wonderful, located in actuality and personal mythology. --Oscar Villalon, managing editor of ZYZZYVA In Shaky Town , Lou Mathews has written a peerless chronicle of working-class Los Angeles, capturing his beloved hometown in all its tragedy and knuckleheaded glory. A former mechanic and eastside street racer, he illuminates daily life with the same kind of grace and authority that Leonard Gardner brought to Fat City . Mathews is the real deal, matching style with soul and reminding us what matters in this life. --Jim Gavin, author of Middle Men and creator of Lodge 49 With Shaky Town , Lou Mathews brings a fascinating and unforgettable corner of the real Los Angeles to vivid life, creating an authentic portrait of a time, a place, and a people. This community is no stranger to tragedy and loss, but there is much beauty, hope, and even humor in Mathews stories as well. His characters know what it means to endure, to survive. They have their triumphs and their struggles--yet so often in these pages, if we pay close enough attention, they are also showing us how to live. --Skip Horack, author of The Other Joseph Mathews turns the prism of East L.A. this way and that, examining it from various perspectives. As an L.A. native, Mathews writes as an insider, giving voice to a diverse group of Angelenos spanning multiple generations and cultures. The result is greater than the sum of its parts: a panoramic vision of an alluring, deranged, rattletrap of a city . . . Remarkably alive. --Larissa Dooley, Los Angeles Review of Books One of the best books of fiction to have come out in recent memory . . . [ Shaky Town ] is one of those rare works that carries an assuring integrity, showing evidence of a writer who understands the bafflement that is the human condition and has the capacity to articulate inchoate sadness and hurt and anger. -- ZYZZYVA This novel is a particular triumph of storytelling, each installment more acute, more poignant, more revealing than the last, each story crackling with its own distinct energy and intelligence. The characters are jumpy at the margins--volatile, mournful, funny as hell--with the little-known warrens and alleyways of Los Angeles teeming all around them. Mathews is a master, and perhaps contemporary fictions best-kept secret. --Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You but Ive Chosen Darkness In telling this story of the Los Angeles hes known, served, and loved, Lou Mathews does more than add to the conversation writers have created about this city, hes created a peerlessly detailed and empathetic work of art. --J. Ryan Stradal, author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota No one writes, or maybe ever has written, as well as Mathews about the local streets and their navigations, liberations, and traps, as brilliantly demonstrated in these stories. --Steve Erickson, author of Shadowbahn Shaky Town is ultimately an embrace of all the people--the respectable and the outcast, the casualties and the survivors, the sinners and the sinned against--that make up a Los Angeles at once pitiless and tender, horrible and wonderful, located in actuality and personal mythology. --Oscar Villalon, managing editor of ZYZZYVA In Shaky Town , Lou Mathews has written a peerless chronicle of working-class Los Angeles, capturing his beloved hometown in all its tragedy and knuckleheaded glory. A former mechanic and eastside street racer, he illuminates daily life with the same kind of grace and authority that Leonard Gardner brought to Fat City . Mathews is the real deal, matching style with soul and reminding us what matters in this life. --Jim Gavin, author of Middle Men and creator of Lodge 49 With Shaky Town , Lou Mathews brings a fascinating and unforgettable corner of the real Los Angeles to vivid life, creating an authentic portrait of a time, a place, and a people. This community is no stranger to tragedy and loss, but there is much beauty, hope, and even humor in Mathews stories as well. His characters know what it means to endure, to survive. They have their triumphs and their struggles--yet so often in these pages, if we pay close enough attention, they are also showing us how to live. --Skip Horack, author of The Other Joseph Mathews turns the prism of East L.A. this way and that, examining it from various perspectives. As an L.A. native, Mathews writes as an insider, giving voice to a diverse group of Angelenos spanning multiple generations and cultures. The result is greater than the sum of its parts: a panoramic vision of an alluring, deranged, rattletrap of a city . . . Remarkably alive. --Larissa Dooley, Los Angeles Review of Books About the Author Lou Mathews is the author of L.A. Breakdown and a longstanding instructor at UCLA Extensions acclaimed Creative Writing program. His stories have been published in ZZZYVYA, New England Review, Tin House, Black Clock, Paperback L.A. , and many fiction anthologies. Mathews is also a journalist, playwright, former restaurant critic, and passionate cook. He has received a Pushcart Prize, a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, and an NEA Fiction Fellowship, and is a recipient of the UCLA Extension Outstanding Instructor Award.