Elsewhere, California

Praise for Elsewhere, California <br> Avery's evolution -- a black woman trying to claim her place -- is as heartbreaking as it is humorous, powerful as it is poignant, because Johnson so assertively confronts those complexities. --Lynell George, The Los Angeles Times <br> Johnson's Elsewhere, California is a clear-eyed jam on class, race, and love; sassy yet searing. --Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love <br> In this debut novel, Johnson brilliantly knits the dual narratives together, maintaining a dynamic balance between nimble language and rowdy, vulnerable characters. The real achievement is the honest, compassionate, and unflinching willingness to honor teenage struggles for identity, confidence, and love while listening to Led Zeppelin and rooting for the Dodgers. <br>-- Publishers Weekly, starred review <br> Reading Elsewhere, California, Dana Johnson's luminous, intelligent, linguistically dexterous first novel about growing up in Southern California, made me understand exponentially more about my own state, my own growing up, and the private lives of families in the homes all around me. An impressive, inspiring debut! <br>--Michelle Huneven, author of Blame <br> Beautifully wrought. A contemporary Bildungsroman with a wise and winning heroine at its heart. --T.C. Boyle <br> I am in love with a woman named Avery and I have only heard her voice. She exists in these pages, radiates from them. Dana Johnson weaves the complex strings of modern identity into a tapestry that is both familiar yet refreshingly new. --Mat Johnson, author of Pym <br> Dana Johnson's extraordinary novel offers an arresting vision of black female identity that transcends color and class even as it reveals its continuing power in our lives. The main character, Avery, is everything at once: struggling and middle-class, black and not-quite-black-enough, sexually invisible and sexually exoticized. Avery is about as complex andv