Chapter Two: “Take Me to the River”
This is California, the land of gold, the paradise of climates, the home of health, the retreat for the aged who would live forever, and for the invalid who dreads to die. And it is raining as if another flood were coming, and is cold enough to chill a salamander. Let us investigate.
—Charles Augustus Stoddard
If those who read are enabled to form any clearer idea of this country and are thereby interested and the more inclined to love the land of sunshine and flowers, the mission of the book will have been accomplished.
—Alice Mary Phillips
All of Los Angeles has an air of Hollywood surreality.... —Tara de Lis
... [T]here really isn’t such a thing as “Los Angeles.” —Lesley McCave