I know we’ve all watched the reports out of Los Angeles with horror – so many displaced people and animals. Author Michael Connelly, who sets his bestselling books in Los Angeles, and lives there, just had his own response on his website, https://bit.ly/408qtiQ. I’m going to share his comments.
| Los AngelesI t’s hard to express what I am feeling but I feel I should express something. It’s just hard to come up with the words. Los Angeles has always had its ups and downs, from devastating earthquakes, fires, floods, mudslides, even riots. It is part of the bargain in living here. You trade immense beauty and opportunity for the possibility of calamity. But when the calamity comes, this place has always been resilient. It has always bounced back. I think that is one of the things I love about the place and why I write about it. This latest catastrophe raises the bar for sure. There is no one in this place who has not been hit by the devastation – either directly through life or property loss, or indirectly through the psychological hit of seeing the place you love burning and seemingly in chaos. You don’t have to be directly touched by the flames to not feel burned in some way. But I know we will bounce back. I know so many people who have lost everything, who don’t know where to go, or what to do. Or what comes next. As I write this there are red flag warnings all over the place in regard to the winds picking up again. We may not be finished with this. But we will bounce back. You can’t say anything about this disaster without mentioning the fearless work of the first responders and their efforts to combat mother nature. I watch the water-bearing helicopters fly over my house every day. Whether in the air or on the ground, they are heroes through and through. They inspire us. Already the outreach from the community to those who have lost from those who have not is growing exponentially. We are already bouncing back. I write very contemporary novels. They are usually set in the year they are published. Last month I began work on a novel to be published in the fall. I set it in this month, with the start of the new year coinciding with a new challenge faced by the Lincoln lawyer, Mickey Haller. Now I must start over and rebuild the story to include what has happened here in the last week. I don’t want to be exploitive or merely put it in as background. I have to find a way to make it mean something in the story and maybe to the people who read it in the fall. Meantime, the greater question I grapple with is what this means. Is this the new new? Will we need to face the possibility of nature turning against us again and again in these extreme ways? Are we now to pay the price for building a city in a desert so long ago? I have no answers. But I think that whatever happens, we’ll be ready and committed. I still love L.A. We always bounce back. – Michael Connelly, January 13, 2025 Ways To Help American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles California Fire Foundation Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation The Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s California Wildfires Recovery Fund Team Rubicon World Central Kitchen |
| Thank you. Jane Davis Web Site Manager MichaelConnelly.com |