Dreamland

Part I Santa Ana Rapture

PART I

SANTA ANA RAPTURE

“Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The winds show us how close to the edge we are.”

—Joan Didion, “Los Angeles Notebook,” Slouching Towards Bethlehem

“This is a love story and I apologize; it was inadvertent. But I want it clearly understood from the start that I don’t expect it to turn out well.”

—Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company