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Shaky Town
In Shaky Town, Lou Mathews has written a timeless novel of working-class Los Angeles. A former mechanic and street racer, he tells his story in cool and panoramic style, weaving together the tragedies and glories of one of L.A.’s eastside neighborhoods. From a teenage girl caught in the middle of a gang war to a priest who has lost his faith and hit bottom, the characters in Shaky Town live on a dangerous faultline but remain unshakable in their connections to one another.
Like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Katherine Ann Porter’s Ship of Fools, Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, and Pat Barker’s Union Street, Shaky Town is the story of complicated, conflicted, and disparate characters bound together by place.
Like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Katherine Ann Porter’s Ship of Fools, Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, and Pat Barker’s Union Street, Shaky Town is the story of complicated, conflicted, and disparate characters bound together by place.
- GenresFiction
240 pages, Hardcover
Published August 24, 2021
11 people are currently reading
1600 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 18, 2021
In telling this story of the Los Angeles he's known, served, and loved, Lou Mathews does more than add to the conversation writers have created about this city, he's created a peerlessly detailed and empathetic work of art. Shaky Town may be a love letter to his rugged, working-class L.A., but at its heart, it's also a love story -- sometimes brutal, often unrequited, but never dishonest.
August 20, 2021
I was the biggest possible fan of the soft stitching that interwove the big cast of Long Beach searchers in Jim Gavin's Lodge 49 on AMC (it's on Hulu: watch it and fall in love). Mathews' bracing short story collection--the first on Gavin's Tiger Van imprint--is a kind of Elseworlds project, unfolding somewhere in that universe. It's a sort of darker, Lodge 49: After Hours set in 1980s LA, but with its own big heart, beating at its own rhythm, that maintains the same soft stitching across a fascinating community. Mathews swings so well between voice-driven stories, bizarre fables, and lived-in moments that spin off into surprising, sublime directions. If you love narratives that loosely connect a constellation of characters in a unique town, pick this up and enjoy.
February 26, 2022
Finished this book a couple of days ago and can't stop thinking about it. It is a novel of linked short stories about the residents of a handful of working-class neighborhoods in East L.A., set mainly in the 1980's. To be honest, I'd not heard of this book until its appearance on the Morning News' Tournament of Books longlist, but I'm very glad to have given it a try.
There's an authenticity to the scene-setting and character building here that explodes off the page. Quiet moments of grace mixed with shocking outbursts of violence in a way that reminded me a bit of Denis Johnson. It's a potent blend, although perhaps not for every reader.
Lou Mathews is not well-known nationwide, but in the literary world of Los Angeles he is much beloved as both an unjustly unsung author (only two of his seven prior books had been published up until now), and as a longtime writing teacher at the UCLA Extension's creative writing program. Hopefully there are more gems to come from this author and brand new publisher Tiger Van Books.
There's an authenticity to the scene-setting and character building here that explodes off the page. Quiet moments of grace mixed with shocking outbursts of violence in a way that reminded me a bit of Denis Johnson. It's a potent blend, although perhaps not for every reader.
Lou Mathews is not well-known nationwide, but in the literary world of Los Angeles he is much beloved as both an unjustly unsung author (only two of his seven prior books had been published up until now), and as a longtime writing teacher at the UCLA Extension's creative writing program. Hopefully there are more gems to come from this author and brand new publisher Tiger Van Books.
February 12, 2023
I can see why many enjoy this book. The panoramic stories told are compelling and very human, all loosely interwoven with each other and connected by each character’s shared neighborhood. Maybe it is my lack of interest, connection, or experience in LA, but I felt like the stories left me (personally) short of captivated. An enjoyable, quick read that was just not my style.
August 31, 2021
“This is one of the elegant interchanges. The 215 crosses over my freeway, the 10, thirty feet up. Eight lanes on two tracks. Four spiraling on-ramps/off-ramps unite the two freeways. The ramps rise out of the earth. They sweep, tower, curve, bank, recurve, and everything changes as you drive through. It’s like tracing a Möbius strip. At sunset, with the orange light behind it, and with the speeding cars and huge trucks changing its shape on the millisecond, the interchange becomes monumental art, more complex and visionary than the earth art documented in museums. I always think they should let the architects sign the pillars. These architects are as unknown as the architects of the pyramids.”
February 7, 2022
A series of short stories plus a novella set in Los Angeles during the early-to-mid 1980's. The short stories are only loosely connected and most of them can be described as character sketches of the various denizens and passer's-by of a working-class, mostly Latino neighbourhood called Shaky Town, so named due to it's built on a fault line, making it very vulnerable to earthquakes.
I found the stories to be pretty hit-or-miss. The first story set the bar very high and the pace very fast. Many of the subsequent stories were entertaining and engrossing, but others were just a bit of a bore to me. Overall, I'm happy I read it, though. It teleported me to a place/time I otherwise wouldn't be able to visit.
I found the stories to be pretty hit-or-miss. The first story set the bar very high and the pace very fast. Many of the subsequent stories were entertaining and engrossing, but others were just a bit of a bore to me. Overall, I'm happy I read it, though. It teleported me to a place/time I otherwise wouldn't be able to visit.
October 23, 2021
Some of the best writing about L.A. I've read. I'm really impressed by how well Mathews manages so many different kinds of voices—he does justice to everyone's humanity, but he doesn’t let anyone off the hook; there's no pity, but no judgment either. A great mix of lushness and sparseness in the prose.
September 15, 2021
Engaging throughout, but in particular the narrator's observations about boilermakers and the story surrounding that observation, was my favorite piece of dark humor in short fiction since either Cody Goodfellow's "Morning Coming Down" in his collection Strategies Against Nature or Rob Roberge's "Diverters" in the Orange County Noir anthology.
November 16, 2021
Loosely connected stories of L.A. characters of a certain era, all different, all captivating, and some ready to break your heart. A beautiful, beautiful book.
December 28, 2025
I have never been to LA. I have no idea what it's really like and is just a meme. But I'm always willing to find out! I read about this book in some article somewhere - was it in the Atlantic? The article was about California's relationship with water and somehow this book got mentioned. I don't think its really that much related at all.
There is a lot about LA and its constant changes. How the city influences people and how people influence the city. You get a bullied migrant owner of the store, Irish monk teaching at high school and dealing with his inner demons as well as his colleagues' demons, un alcohólico viejo Emilio with his thoughtful and insightful observations about the evolution of the Shaky Town barrio and more. It also touches the gangs and young generation, but never dwells too long on a certain perspective before switching it completely for another angle.
It uses lots of spanish, it contains lots of booze, its deeply moving in some instances (my favorite story was about a guy who lost his mother and then drives and drinks and observes how the sun sets while visiting different parts of the city on his road home. Again, I could not imagine any of the landscapes being described because I was never there, only remotely imagining it would be something like Málaga in Spain and its surroundings which I know.)
The characters are deep, the writing is excellent, everything runs smoothly and I was done before I realized it even started. Great stuff!
There is a lot about LA and its constant changes. How the city influences people and how people influence the city. You get a bullied migrant owner of the store, Irish monk teaching at high school and dealing with his inner demons as well as his colleagues' demons, un alcohólico viejo Emilio with his thoughtful and insightful observations about the evolution of the Shaky Town barrio and more. It also touches the gangs and young generation, but never dwells too long on a certain perspective before switching it completely for another angle.
It uses lots of spanish, it contains lots of booze, its deeply moving in some instances (my favorite story was about a guy who lost his mother and then drives and drinks and observes how the sun sets while visiting different parts of the city on his road home. Again, I could not imagine any of the landscapes being described because I was never there, only remotely imagining it would be something like Málaga in Spain and its surroundings which I know.)
The characters are deep, the writing is excellent, everything runs smoothly and I was done before I realized it even started. Great stuff!
August 13, 2022
A novel that's really a gathering of short stories (and one novella) that deals with the people in a working-class, heavily Latinx area of Los Angeles called Shaky Town.
These stories are just SO GOOD. The author brings you right there to the time and place. You see it, smell it, hear it, you follow these people and their lives and their own system of values and passions and fears and obsessions. There's a lot to admire about these characters and a lot to judge about them - although they are presented as is, without judgement, the author leaves that step to us.
I was engaged, fascinated, moved.
These stories are just SO GOOD. The author brings you right there to the time and place. You see it, smell it, hear it, you follow these people and their lives and their own system of values and passions and fears and obsessions. There's a lot to admire about these characters and a lot to judge about them - although they are presented as is, without judgement, the author leaves that step to us.
I was engaged, fascinated, moved.
March 7, 2025
I'm always on the lookout for good writing about Los Angeles, from Nathanael West to Raymond Chandler to Bruce Wagner in our day. So I was happy to stumble across Lou Mathews's novel of connected stories. Clean prose, piquant characters and unglamorous settings make a great combo. I look forward to getting his latest, Hollywoodski.
February 7, 2025
outstanding stories!
These loosely connected stories (it’s a bit of a reach to call it a novel) are told with a confident hand, very well written. The characters are often witty, original, and memorable. A writer I can’t wait to read more of.
These loosely connected stories (it’s a bit of a reach to call it a novel) are told with a confident hand, very well written. The characters are often witty, original, and memorable. A writer I can’t wait to read more of.
January 3, 2022
These were fantastic little stories. I kept waiting for more tragedy and was pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen. Loved the interconnections between characters.
March 14, 2022
Ce bouquin est censé être un roman mais il se lit plutôt comme un livre plein de vignettes dont certaines sont très émouvantes et d'autres non. Mais à tout prendre, ça vaut la peine de le lire.
March 29, 2022
A brilliant exploration of the connections between vividly drawn characters in a Los Angeles neighborhood.
April 22, 2022
Beautiful, aching perfection, every last one of these stories. I took my time with this collection because I didn’t want it to end. Couldn’t have loved it more.
Want to read
January 17, 2023Recommended by Turner Publishing.
July 15, 2023
I lived in (and walked/cycled throughout) Los Angeles for 3+ years and feel honored to have sniffed even a snippet of the city and the people that Lou Mathews describes here. What a book.
July 19, 2025
These stories don’t just take place in Los Angeles, they effectively situate the reader there as well. Unlike any book I’ve read that takes place in the city, it feels accurate in describing the parts of LA I identify with through storytelling, with the characters being more like the people we all interact with everyday. I will be revisiting this book ❤️
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews