Lou Mathews on Shaky Town

Lou Mathews has written seven books and published two of them, Just Like James and L.A. Breakdown, an LA Times Best Book. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s acclaimed creative writing program since 1989. His stories have been published in ZYZZYVA, New England Review, Short Story, Black Clock , Paperback L.A. , and many fiction anthologies. Mathews is also a journalist, playwright, and passionate cook, as well as a former mechanic, street racer, and restauranthttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Y2A9687.jpg/1200px-Y2A9687.jpg critic. He has received a Pushcart Prize and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, as well as California Arts Commission and NEA Fiction fellowships, and is a recipient of the UCLA Extension Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor awards. Welcome to Shaky Town, a place invisible on maps and found only in the secret heart of its citizens. In his second novel, Lou Mathews, a former mechanic and street racer, captures the grit and gold of working class Los Angeles and lays down his marker as one of the city's great chroniclers. He tells his tale in a cool and panoramic style, weaving together the tragedies and glories of one east side neighborhood in the 1980s. From a teenage girl caught in the middle of a gang war, to an Irish 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.