Leslie Karst

Originally from Southern California, Leslie Karst moved north to attend UC Santa Cruz (home of the Fighting Banana Slugs), and after graduation, parlayed her degree in English literature into employment waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock and roll band. Exciting though this life was, she eventually decided she was ready for a “real” job, and ended up at Stanford Law School.

For the next twenty years Karst worked as the research and appellate attorney for Santa Cruz’s largest civil law firm. During this time, she discovered a passion for food and cooking, and so once more returned to school—this time to earn a degree in Culinary Arts.

Now retired from the law, Karst spends her time cooking, singing alto in the local community chorus, gardening, cycling, and of course writing. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix, Ziggy, split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai'i.

Here Karst dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Waters of Destruction:

My wife and I are in Fairbanks, Alaska for a 10-day vacation, taking in the magnificence of the aurora borealis, the marvel of the international ice carving competition, and the excitement of dog mushing. In anticipation of this trip, I’ve been saving to read City Under One Roof, Iris Yamashita’s gripping debut thriller that takes place in a tiny Alaskan hamlet where everyone lives in the same large building. Add to that the fact that it’s winter and the one road in and out of the village is closed by a storm, and what you get is a marvelous new take on the “locked room” mystery.

Sitting up late at night (waiting for the aurora to start its show) and reading this novel while myself in a home surrounded by pristine, white snow and dense birch forest, I’ve been riveted by the gripping story of Cara Kennedy, a detective from Anchorage who’s sent to the tiny town to investigate the discovery of a severed hand and foot found washed up onto the shore. But as soon becomes clear, not only are the residents of the town reluctant to talk to this outsider, but Cara, too, has secrets of her own.

Highly recommended—and for those in the Lower Forty-Eight and Hawai‘i, as well!

Visit Leslie Karst’s website.

Coffee with a Canine: Leslie Karst & Ziggy.

My Book, The Movie: The Fragrance of Death.

Q&A with Leslie Karst.

The Page 69 Test: Waters of Destruction.

My Book, The Movie: Waters of Destruction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lincoln Mitchell

Lincoln Mitchell is an instructor in the School of International and Public Affairs and the political science department at Columbia University. He has written numerous books, scholarly articles, and opinion columns on American politics, foreign policy, the history and politics of San Francisco, and baseball. In addition to his academic interests, Mitchell has worked in domestic political campaigns and on foreign policy projects in dozens of countries, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Mitchell earned his BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his PhD from Columbia University. He lives in New York and San Francisco.

Mitchell's new book is Three Years Our Mayor: George Moscone and the Making of Modern San Francisco.

I asked the author about what he was reading. Mitchell's reply:

I like to read both fiction and nonfiction, and usually switch back and forth between the two with each book I read. I have read a few novels recently, but my favorite was Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake. Some might say it comports with my background and personality that I'm a big Rachel Kushner fan. We are both Jewish, both grew up in San Francisco and both seem to have a particular love for the western part of the city. As a young person Kushner spent a lot of time in the Sunset District, which is just south of Golden Gate Park whereas I identify more with the Richmond District, just north of the park. While we didn't go to the same high school-Kushner went to Lowell and I went to University High School-I have a lot of friends who went to Lowell with her.

In Creation Lake, Kushner tells a story of aging lefty radicals in rural France and evinces a vague contempt, respect, admiration and sense of absurdity towards the group to which I could relate. The novel is told in the first person, and the main character is a woman sent to infiltrate this old lefty group. Kushner's portrayal of that character was mesmerizing and relatable despite being the kind of character who I knew if I met in real life, I probably wouldn't like at all. Creation Lake is very much a character and vibe, rather than plot, driven book, but it drew me in as these rather obscure French characters became very real to me. It is the kind of book that is best read slowly so that the characters seep in, and you have a chance to dip into and out of their world over a course of a week or two.

I also recently read Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out, the memoir of the legendary music promoter Bill Graham. Most people who are familiar with the history of rock music and the 1960s counterculture know a bit about Graham-and this book is very much written from Graham’s perspective. Naturally, he was the tough guy and hero of every story-at least that’s how Graham saw it, but this book was much more than that.

Graham had an extraordinary life, one deeply intertwined with the Jewish twentieth century. His childhood journey of staying one step ahead of Nazi genocide before finally landing in the Bronx after being adopted by a Jewish American family captures the horrors of what remains the worst chapter in the long and difficult history of the Jews. Graham experienced that journey as a boy and recounts it powerfully.

By his mid-thirties, Graham was living a very different life. He was successful, his own boss, was able to do what he wanted and worked with some of the most important cultural figures of his time. Graham died in a helicopter crash when he was only 60, so the memoir is unfinished, but the contrasts of his life and, if you read between the lines, the trauma he carried with him throughout his life, make for a story that is not only important reading to understand rock music, but also to understand the Jewish American experience.

Both books, not surprisingly, have a connection to San Francisco. Kushner grew up there and Graham made a bigger impact on that city than any other. Additionally, Kushner, like me, grew up in the shadow of Moscone’s San Francisco, when it was already giving way to the more conservative 1980s iteration which eventually created the foundation for today’s San Francisco.

Visit Lincoln Mitchell's website.

The Page 99 Test: San Francisco Year Zero.

The Page 99 Test: The Giants and Their City.

The Page 99 Test: Three Years Our Mayor.

--Marshal Zeringue