L.A. Stories Authors Offer Different Views Of Contemporary Black Culture

Southern California authors Susan Straight and Jervey Tervalon grew up less than 50 miles from each other. But, to use Straight’s language, their respective homes were “worlds apart.”

Tervalon is from inner-city Los Angeles, while Straight hails from the community of Riverside, which lies to the east. “I’m an hour away from L.A.,”

Straight says, “but it’s like a universe away from L.A.”

Both she and Tervalon will talk about their homes and read from their respective novels during a 7 p.m. joint appearance Thursday at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington.

Some of what they say will be surprising. For as much as Los Angeles is urban to Riverside’s essential rurality, the inherent life experiences of Straight and Tervalon have been similar in several respects.

First of all, both have been writing since their teen years.

Second, both are immersed in contemporary black culture. Though Straight, a 34-year-old mother of two, is white, her husband, whom she has known since junior high, is black. And her novels, especially her latest, “Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights,” are gripping studies of the modern black experience.

Tervalon, a 36-year-old native of New Orleans whose heritage is Creole, grew up in a Los Angeles that has become synonymous in film and fiction with riots, gang-banging and drive-by shootings. His first novel, “Understand This,” is a page from this world.

But - and this is where the similarities of Tervalon and Straight affect their work - both writers do more than just spout the usual cliches about their environments. Their stories, which involve real people instead of mere stereotypes, fill the cracks left by the headline method of storytelling.

Though raised, as he says, in a “‘Boyz N the Hood’ neighborhood,” Tervalon insists that his childhood involved the same kinds of activities enjoyed by kids of all economic levels and ethnic persuasions.

“I flew model rockets,” he said during a recent phone interview. “I was interested in karate, and I had a friend who was a moviemaker.

“I had a friend who, essentially, thought he could make it as a professional chess player.

“That was one of the great things about growing up in my neighborhood. There were real eccentric characters.”

The graduate of the esteemed writing program at University of California at Irvine, tried to interest editors in his stories about those characters. But he had to struggle against publishers’ preconceived notions.

“Editors would send me things like, ‘I love your characters,”’ he said. “‘They’re multidimensional, witty and wonderful, but I can’t use them.’

“So I put a shooting on the first page and I sell the book. If I’d had the shooting on the 30th page, I don’t know.”

“Understand This” is told through the eyes of several characters who encompass a wide range of types. Francoise is the ex-athlete turned dealer; Margot is his sexpot girlfriend who is aiming herself toward college; Michaels is their high-school teacher who is aiming himself toward law school; Ann is Francoise’s mother who, with her daughter, is headed for Atlanta. All, in one way or another, are intent on getting out.

Straight, too, writes about a world threatened by poverty and all its attendant problems: the danger of the streets, the drugs and the specter of prison. But her protagonists, Darnell, who works as a seasonal firefighter, and his wife, Brenda, work to have what anyone would consider a “normal” life in the midst of this madness.

It’s a part of the L.A.-basin world that doesn’t often get publicized.

“I think that people like us get totally forgotten,” Straight said, also during a recent phone interview.

Referring to her husband, an ex-athlete who works as a juvenile corrections officer, Straight said, “Nobody remembers that there are guys like Dwayne out there. Every day he goes to work. He washes the car. He cuts the grass. He deals with people pulling guns on him when he goes out.

“And he’s still hanging around. We have lots of friends who are trying to be good fathers. But the young, black father gets totally overlooked. No one even knows he exists anymore.”

Despite their similarities, however, Straight and Tervalon have distinctly different writing styles.

His is pared down, capturing the essences of individual characters in first-person sequences. Straight is more the traditional novelist, whose prose is rich with introspection.

The two are friends, having met a year and a half ago during one of Straight’s readings. She even provided a blurb for his book.

And between them, they provide a more complete view of their California than you might imagine exists.

“We could really be four or five different Californias,” Straight said. “But unless you know California really well, people don’t believe that.”

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