An exquisitely realized and wholly original memoir of growing up in blue-collar 1950s Lakewood, California, the quintessential post-World War II American suburb and the prototype for the countless tract developments that would follow. Lyrical, compassionate and profound, Holy Land is an uncompromising, passionate statement rich with emotion that presents the rise of suburban California in its full complexity.

"An astonishing book, unsentimental, baleful, yet oddly affecting. I have never read anything quite like it". -- Witold Rybczynski

With Holy Land, poet-historian D.J. Waldie has produced a brilliant period piece about suburban L.A., an American classic which shines with the poignancy, loss, and optimism produced by ages of discovery". -- Peter Theroux