Mecca,

by Susan Straight, 2022

Susan Straight was born and raised in Riverside, California, on the one hand close by Los Angeles and on another, far distant. In Mecca, with beautiful prose, she introduces us to Californians whose voices we rarely hear. Black, White, Asian, Mexican, indigenous. From newly arrived immigrants to Cahuilla Indians who’ve been here for thousands of years. We come to know family and friendship ties that connect the people to each other and the land. We sense their dignity as they wrestle with challenges of living in a natural and human world that is often inhospitable.

Each section, whether told in first or third person, focuses on someone whose life intertwines with others we’ve met. The first person we meet is Johnny Frias, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer with deep Californian and Mexican roots. With his name, dark Moreno skin and his hundreds of miles of daily traffic patrol, he encounters disrespect, insults, threats, gratitude. And even, on a covid-empty freeway, a shared minute contemplating the thrill of 119 miles per hour with a driver who politely accepts his speeding ticket and slowly drives off.

 A nurse, physically and emotionally exhausted at the beginning of the pandemic, living in quarantine by the hospital. Her son is alone at home in the canyon. She’s buoyed by knowing she can count on her friends, the men who rotate bringing him food and spending the night on the couch and so save him from total isolation.

Uncles, aunts, and cousins create home and community an apartment court “where Hollywood women lived, back in 1930.” They are protected by a “wild profusion of blue trumpet blossoms” that makes “people think an old white woman lives here still”-- and by an unseen armed cousin guarding the gate. Going out to their jobs housekeeping, landscaping, and caregiving, they are forever vigilant, in fear of ICE and prepared to run.

We explore the Inland Empire of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties--canyon and mountain; desert and river; ranch and reservation; Santa Anas and the ever-present threat of fire and flood.

Fire is not just flames, firefighters and fire retardant-spewing planes. It’s the willfully careless driver whose pickup truck, overloaded with stolen metal stadium seats, scrapes bottom, sparking one grass fire after another. It’s Johnny calling the warning to his father, up in old ranch-hand housing among eucalyptus trees that act like matchsticks. It’s his buddies heeding his call, as they always do, joining the fight to save the cattle, ranch and Johnny’s childhood home.

Language intrigues these multilingual characters. They speak not only the expected English and Spanish, but Mixtec, New Orleans French, multiple indigenous languages and various combinations of them. They muse on the difficulty of speaking American even when their English is fluent. Johnny ponders: “Holy cow. Never horse or dog or chicken. Holy smokes. Never fire or flame. Holy mackerel. Never trout or salmon or sardine. Holy moly. Whatever the hell that was.” Ximena, having barely survived the crossing up from Oaxaca, studies Spanish and English by meticulously charting new words in her three languages Mixtec, Spanish and American. The non-English words sprinkled through the text contribute to our immersion into Mecca’s world.  

Mecca is a truly engaging book, a beautiful story as well as a source for wide-ranging reflection -- geography, history, climate, culture, family, immigration, race, and California.

 Susan Corcoran