About So L.A.
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Lettered Press; First edition (June 20, 2012)
Magdalena de la Cruz breezed through Berkeley and built an empire selling designer water. She’d never felt awkward or unattractive… until she moved to Los Angeles. In L.A., where “everything smells like acetone and Errol Flynn,” Magdalena attempts to reinvent herself as a geographically appropriate bombshell—with rhinestones, silicone and gin—as she seeks an escape from her unraveling marriage and the traumatic death of her younger brother, Junah. Magdalena’s Los Angeles is glitzy and glamorous but also a landscape of the absurd. Her languidly lyrical voice provides a travel guide for a city of make-believe, where even Hollywood insiders feel left out.
Like a lane change on the 405 freeway during rush hour, Bridget Hoida skillfully navigates the impossible. In So L.A.Hoida offers both a satirical and sympathetic portrait of contemporary Los Angeles through the penetrating prose of her female protagonist. Evoking a dynamic and materialist landscape, So L.A. introduces readers to the unforgettable voice of an extremely talented new writer.
“Electric, funny, lively, edged prose illuminates the pages of So L.A. —Hoida knows how to write sentences and characters that bite right into you.” -Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt & The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“Bridget is a rare thing — an original writer with a unique voice. Her writing is ironic, satirical, smart, sexy and deeply tender. This is a book Joan Didion will wish she’d written!” -Chris Abani, author of Song for Night & Graceland
“Bridget Hoida has crafted a remarkably fine novel. The language of this work is fresh, surprising and relentless. The novel captures California, it captures the culture, it captures this one woman’s life and it captured me. This is strong stuff from a strong talent. Hoida’s voice is here to stay.” -Percival Everett, author of Assumption & Erasure
“In So L.A. Bridget Hoida has crafted that rarest of books: intelligent, gorgeously written—and, best of all, fun. The charming, witty and slightly off-kilter voice of narrator Magdalena de la Cruz brings to mind the writing of Nabokov—but in a distinctly California style. Hoida’s sharp, exquisite prose awed me, and brought me to both laughter and tears.” -Shawna Yang Ryan, author of Water Ghosts
About Bridget Hoida
Bridget Hoida lives and writes in Southern California. In past lives she was a librarian, a DJ, a high school teacher and a barista. In this life she experiments with poetry and fiction and has taught writing at UC Irvine, the University of Southern California, and Saddleback College. Bridget is the recipient of an Anna Bing Arnold Fellowship and the Edward Moses prize for fiction. She was a finalist in the Joseph Henry Jackson/San Francisco Intersection for the Arts Award for a first novel and the William Faulkner Pirate’s Alley first novel contest. Her short stories have appeared in the Berkeley Fiction Review, Mary, and Faultline Journal, among others, and she was a finalist for the Iowa Review Fiction Prize and in the Glimmer Train New Writer’s Short Story Contest. Her poetry has earned her recognition as an Academy of American Poets Prize finalist and she was a Future Professoriate Scholar at USC. She has a BA from UC Berkeley, MA in fiction from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California.
Visit Bridget’s website for more info at Bridgethoida.com.
Bridget Hoida’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Thursday, July 5th: CBS Los Angeles – LA’s Summer Reading Guide
Monday, August 13th: The 3R’s Blog
Wednesday, August 15th: Peppermint Ph.D.
Thursday, August 16th: Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile
Monday, August 20th: Kritter’s Ramblings
Wednesday, August 22nd: Sweet Southern Home – guest post
Thursday, August 23rd: Book Chatter
Monday, August 27th: Reviews by Molly
Monday, August 27th: Bookish Whimsy
Tuesday, August 28th: Travel Spot
Wednesday, August 29th: Book Club Classics!
Thursday, August 30th: A Chick Who Reads
Tuesday, September 4th: A Bookish Affair
Tuesday, September 11th: Oh! Paper Pages
Tuesday, September 11th: In the Next Room
Wednesday, September 12th: Conceptual Reception
Thursday, September 13th: Seaside Book Nook
TBD: Colloquium