Books › Dreams from Bunker Hill
Dreams from Bunker Hill
First published 1985 · 146 pages
A manic, sun-baked hustle through 1930s Los Angeles, fueled by cheap diners, towering ego, and the desperate hunger to create.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like riding shotgun with a brilliant, insufferable, and deeply sympathetic friend who is determined to conquer the world with nothing but a typewriter and sheer audacity. The pace is brisk and episodic, driven by a manic energy that perfectly captures the restless hustle of 1930s Los Angeles. The prose is punchy and unadorned, yet it frequently erupts into moments of tragicomic lyricism that expose the raw vulnerability beneath the narrator's towering ego. It is a sun-baked, gritty atmosphere where the glamour of Hollywood is always just out of reach, replaced instead by cheap diners, unpaid rent, and bruised pride. This is a perfect match for anyone who loves the romantic, desperate mythology of the starving artist and the bittersweet reality of chasing the American Dream.
- Mood
- sun-baked
- restless
- gritty
- nostalgic
- Tone
- wry
- tragicomic
- manic
- self-deprecating
- cynical
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- the starving artist · youthful hubris · Los Angeles mythology · the illusion of the American Dream · poverty and ambition
- The writing
- Punchy, unadorned, and rhythmically propulsive, blending raw street-level dialogue with bursts of lyrical ego.
- The arc
- Moves from manic, delusional optimism through a series of humiliating reality checks to a bruised but enduring commitment to the writing life.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love gritty, character-driven mid-century American fiction and the tragicomic struggles of the starving artist.
Content notes
- alcoholism
- poverty
- period-typical bigotry
- sexism
About the book
My first collision with fame was hardly memorable. I was a busboy at Marx's Deli. The year was 1934. The place was Third and Hill, Los Angeles. I was twenty-one years old, living in a world bounded on the west by Bunker Hill, on the east by Los Angeles Street, on the south by Pershing Square, and on the north by Civic Center. I was a busboy nonpareil, with great verve and style for the profession, and though I was dreadfully underpaid (one dollar a day plus meals) I attracted considerable attention as I whirled from table to table, balancing a tray on one hand, and eliciting smiles from my customers. I had something else beside a waiter's skill to offer my patrons, for I was also a writer.
Description from Open Library.
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