West of the West Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State

Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West," and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years traveling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the cliches. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it. Compelling, lyrical and ominous, his collection finds a different drama rising out of each confounding landscape. Arax combines journalism, essay, and memoir to capture social upheaval as well as the sense of being rooted in a community. Piece by piece, the stories become a whole, a stunning panorama of California, and America, in a new century.

Mark Arax is a bestselling author and journalist whose writings on California and the West have received numerous awards for literary nonfiction. A former staffer at the Los Angeles Times, his work has appeared in the New York Times and the California Sunday Magazine. His books include The Dreamt Land, In My Father's Name, West of the West, and the bestselling The King of California, which won a California Book Award, the William Saroyan Prize from Stanford University and was named a top book of 2004 by the L.A. Times. He lives in Fresno.