San Francisco and Oakland take center stage in new book releases by Bay Area authors.
The Bay Area has a long history of supplying authors with memorable settings, but there’s an especially strong sense of place in these new releases by Bay Area authors. Donia Bijan starts her debut novel in San Francisco, then takes readers to her native Iran; “Oakland Noir” captures hidden corners of its namesake city. Fiction and memoirs, all with Bay Area connections, round out this month’s list of new releases. “The Last Days of Café Leila” by Donia Bijan (Algonquin, $25.95, 304 pages)
A betrayal sets Donia Bijan’s captivating new novel in motion. When Noor discovers that her husband has left her for another woman, she gathers what’s left of her San Francisco life and returns to her native Iran. Arriving in Tehran with her teenaged daughter, Lily, she settles into a new life centered in her father’s neighborhood café. But Iran has changed since Noor left for America 30 years earlier. As she confronts national history and family revelations, “The Last Days of Café Leila” delivers a moving portrait of a character caught between two worlds. Bijan, whose own family fled Iran in 1978, made her first return to the country in 2010; a chef who ran her own restaurant, L’Amie Donia in Palo Alto, she describes the dishes of Café Leila in delicious detail. Meet the author April 20 at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, and May 2 at Book Passage in San Francisco.
“Oakland Noir,” edited by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller (Akashic Books, $15.95, 278 pages)
Building on the series of noir anthologies that began in 2004 with “Brooklyn Noir,” Akashic Books turns to Oakland with this new collection of stories, each one set in a neighborhood or location within the city. Among the authors represented are Kim Addonizio, Nick Petrulakis and Judy Juanita. From the Oakland hills to the heart of downtown, each story brings Oakland to life. City Lights hosts a reading April 25 in San Francisco, with contributors to be announced.
“De Facto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland” by Judy Juanita (EquiDistance Press, $19.95, 230 pages)
Speaking of Oakland, Judy Juanita, author of the 2013 novel “Virgin Soul,” lives in the city and knows it well. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, she writes about her experiences as a teacher, poet, playwright, activist and stand-up comic. Her thoughtful observations on art, music, race, and feminism draw on her roots in the Bay Area’s ever-changing cultural landscape.
“Tenderloin” by Court Haslett (280 Steps, $17.95, 295 pages) San Francisco novelist Court Haslett looks back to a particularly haunting event in Bay Area history; the rise of the Reverend Jim Jones, who in 1978 lured followers from the People’s Temple to Guyana, where 900 died in a mass murder/suicide. Haslett’s protagonist, Sleeper Hayes, is a hard-boiled character in the noir tradition.
“One Way Down (Or Another)” by Calder G. Lorenz (Civil Coping Mechanisms, $15.95, 170 pages)
Like Haslett, San Francisco’s Calder Lorenz has a gift for capturing the grittier side of the city; the author, who has a master of fine arts degree from the University of San Francisco, works at St. Anthony’s Dining Room in the Tenderloin. With this debut novel, he charts one man’s epic struggle to escape the long fall to down and out.
“The Wrong Dead Guy” by Richard Kadrey (Harper Voyager, $24.99, 420 pages)
Richard Kadrey, whose previous novels include “The Everything Box” and the Sandman Slim series, delivers another rollicking caper starring Coop, his master thief gone legit. Kadrey, a San Francisco resident, loads his tale with supernatural stuff: a mummy, a secret government agency and an ancient manuscript that may or may not be the key to Coop’s most pressing problems.
“The Pope of Brooklyn” by Joseph Di Prisco (Vireo/Rare Bird Books, $24, 320 pages)
“My father didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, but it was close.” So writes Joseph di Prisco in this memoir about Joe “Pope” di Prisco, a larger-than-life character who helped New York City cops track down bookmakers and made deals to testify against them. Court transcripts and remembrances of the author’s own edgy exploits pack this account of a father’s legacy to a son.
“On to the Next Dream” by Paul Madonna (City Lights, $17.95, 80 pages)
Much has been written abut the “tech wars” that have made living in San Francisco an impossible dream for old-timers and young workers. For writer and graphic artist Paul Madonna, the issue became personal when he found himself evicted from his Mission District home. Combining narrative and his distinctive graphics, “On to the Next Dream” depicts Madonna’s struggle to find new digs. He’ll read from the book April 19 at City Lights in San Francisco, April 29 at Pegasus in Berkeley and May 3 at Booksmith in San Francisco.