They say, “write what you know.” But when I decided to set several of my stories in Chavez Ravine, I didn’t know the area in Los Angeles first-hand. The city had evicted the residents long before I was born. But my mother and her family talked about what it was like living in the hilltop neighborhoods of Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop before the evictions.
My family described the rolling hills, the open spaces, a tight-knit community of Mexican Americans where everyone knew everyone (and their business) and if you were from Palo Verde (like my family) and someone was from La Loma, they lived “way over there” even though it wasn’t far.
I have a few family photos from those Chavez Ravine days, but not enough to get a strong sense of the place.
Thank goodness for Don Normark’s beautiful book of photographs and interviews, Chavez Ravine, 1949, A Los Angeles Story published in 1999.
I’ve spent countless hours studying the black and white pictures, staring at the faces of the people and reading the recollections of former residents. It wasn’t long before they came to inspire the characters that ended up in my stories.
Like Ripper, my mother’s first husband. She never spoke of him, but he became the street fighter turned monster slayer in The Monsters of Chavez Ravine, and later reappears in Mortal Magic, the fourth book in my Maddy Madrigal Mysteries series.
In Normark’s book, there’s a photo of four guys hanging out in front of Genaro’s store in La Loma. Ripper’s looks are based on the handsome fellow identified as “Carlitos.”
What would have happened if the city hadn’t evicted those families? Would the neighborhoods have prospered, the residents becoming wealthier as their properties increased in value? What kind of lives might their children and grandchildren have had?
That’s the beauty of urban fantasy. You can create an alternative world with an imagined history where the neighborhood once known as the “poor man’s Shangri-La” not only remains but has also thrived.
Throw in some monsters and a bit of magic, and you’ve got a rich setting and eclectic cast of characters that bring me endless hours of joy as I write about them.
