Luz’s Books

Luz holds onto her collection of books, including biographies of the west’s founding fathers, explorers, naturalists, and geologists, throughout the novel. She often imagines them, quotes them, interacts with them, remembers them, and names them as if they are real characters and friends that are by her side. They symbolize a connection to the past, to what California once was and could be again, and the integration of their names into the prose is another way that the author plays with the narrative style and weaves in intertextual references and blurs imagination with what is really happening.

The Starlet’s Wardrobe

The novel opens with Luz aimlessly trying on the beautiful clothing she finds in the starlet’s abandoned mansion that she and Ray are hiding out in. They symbolize the glittering promise of Hollywood as a land of dreams, fame, and possibility...