num_pages: 0
description: From the National Book Award finalist Susan Straight Mecca is a stunning epic tracing the intertwined lives of native Californians fighting for life and landJohnny Fras has California in his blood. A descendant of the states Indigenous people and Mexican settlers he has Southern Californias forgotten towns and canyons in his soul. He spends his days as a highway patrolman pulling over speeders ignoring their racist insults and pushing past the trauma of his rookie year when he killed a man assaulting a young woman named Bunny who ran from the scene leaving Johnny without a witness. But like the Santa Ana winds that every year bring the risk of fire Johnnys moment of action twenty years ago sparked a slow-burning chain of connections that unites a vibrant complex cast of characters in ways they never see coming. In Mecca the celebrated novelist Susan Straight crafts an unforgettable American epic examining race history family and destiny through the interlocking stories of a group of native Californians all gasping for air. With sensitivity furor and a cinematic scope that captures California in all its injustice history and glory she tells a story of the American West through the eyes of the people who built itand continue to sustain it. As the stakes get higher and the intertwined characters in Mecca slam against barrier after barrier they find that when push comes to shove its always better to push back.
language: English
title: Mecca
publisher: Recorded Books