California Fault: Looking for the Spirit of a State Along the San Andreas - Hardcover

Clarke, Thurston

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345385667 ISBN 13: 9780345385666

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1996

Synopsis

"I became interested in earthquakes when one almost killed me," begins acclaimed travel writer Thurston Clarke, "and in California when I discovered it almost killed my ancestor. . . ." His fascination propelled Clarke to take a journey and begin a brilliant exploration of the physical and social landscape of a mythical state.
California has seduced millions with its breathtaking beauty and rich resources. For decades it symbolized the good life: perfect weather, spectacular beaches, agricultural bounty, limitless opportunity, endless optimism, "a new start, a kinder providence, a rebirth of soul and body." Yet the social problems and natural disasters of recent years have tarnished the image of the golden state. To find out what really happened to the California dream, Clarke set off on a remarkable journey down the San Andreas fault, searching for the places and the people who could enlighten him and perhaps answer the provocative question: What is it like living in a place that no matter how beautiful, might suddenly, while you opened the cereal, combed your hair, or bathed the baby, strike you dead?
On this incredible excursion, Clarke discovers the tragic fate of the Wiyot Indians and their earthquake legends. . . meets Jerry Hurley, an earthquake "sensitive" whose headaches predict earthquakes with uncanny precision. . . investigates the bitter conflict between California's logging industry and environmentalists. . . uncovers a fascinating conspiracy surrounding the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that rewrote history. . . visits Palm Springs, the glamorous desert hideaway of gated communities, now beset by gangs. . . and stops by the desolate Salton Sea, shaking hands with a determined dreamer who hopes someday to build a blue-collar resort along the abandoned shores.
With wit, irony, and a keen eye for observation, Clarke weaves together sociology, history, personality, and seismology. What emerges is a unique portrait of a fascinating, slightly loony, appealingly complex state, with its allure, eccentricity--and optimism--still wonderfully intact.

About this title

Review

Acclaimed travel writer Thurston Clarke sets off on a journey down the San Andreas Fault, searching for the lost California Dream and for the places and the people who can enlighten him by answering the provocative question: What is it like living in a place that, no matter how beautiful, might suddenly, while you opened the cereal, combed your hair or bathed the baby, strike you dead? From the answers a unique profile of the Golden State emerges: fascinating, slightly loony, appealingly complex, and enduringly optimistic.

From Kirkus Reviews

In this thoroughly entertaining travel narrative, Clarke (Pearl Harbor Ghosts: A Journey to Hawaii Then and Now, 1991, etc.) takes the measure of the San Andreas fault, that 750-mile scar running head to foot through California, and finds residing along the crack a sideshow's worth of oddballs, shysters, and ugly memories. The fault comes ashore in rugged, remote Shelter Cove, where Clarke picks it up. One of those real-estate diddles classic to coastal developments, the cove is the source for an endless river of cranks, misfits, eccentrics, and garden variety weirdos running down the fault line: folks with headaches that predict earthquakes (perhaps the magnetite in their inner ears picks up electromagnetic signals from grinding tectonic plates); the insane Hoods gang members who commit meanness in Saratoga; garlic thieves in Gilroy; vicious counterculturalists in Bolinas; a pathetic, bloated flasher with a car full of Wendy's wrappers. More gratifying is the Anderson Valley Advertiser, ``the funniest, nastiest, most high- minded and vulgar, entertaining, and addictive small-town weekly newspaper in the nation,'' and its editor Bruce Anderson. Then again, Clarke never shrinks from serious business: He chronicles the devastation of the Wiyot Indians around Eureka and experiences the brutal clearcuts of Humboldt and Mendocino counties, where the land has come to resemble the ``fur of a sick cat'' (unhappily, since redwoods can be used as seismic timetables--Clarke is forever on the quake beat). Knit through the journey, pretty much stealing the show, are Clarke's tack-sharp landscape sketches, for the San Andreas is a genius at ``creating razorback ridges, folded green hills, soaring sea cliffs, pink mountains rising from desert, and jumbled wine-friendly valleys.'' A nearly edible travelogue--smooth as mousse, full of savory tidbits, and memorable. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0345385667
• ISBN 13: 9780345385666
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 417