Angel City Press is proud—and excited—to announce that Lynell George has joined the ACP family of distinguished authors. Watch for her newest book in Spring 2018, After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the FrameHere’s how the incredible Ms. George sees her collection of essays, photographs, and reportage about our favorite city: 

Los Angeles lives largest in our imaginations. It can be a projection, a solution, a temporary fix, a long-term goal. And for me, it’s simply been home. After/Image focuses on Los Angeles’s beneath-the-surface sense of place—both its past and the here-and-now. Lynell GeorgeAs an L.A.-based journalist and photographer, I explore a set of questions about my hometown: After decades of wholesale rethinking, what distinguishing features of the city’s essence remain deeply rooted? What rituals, details, passed-on lifestyles persist outside the edges of the frame—beyond the projected idea of Los Angeles? What are those lasting memories, the essential “afterimages” upon which we reflect? What is it about the place we carry around in our imagination and our hearts? What’s left?

In certain light and in certain pockets, Los Angeles still feels quiet and personal. Despite the overlays and the many rewritten chapters of the city, Los Angeles still offers passageways and neighborhoods that allow for real conversations and meaningful intersections. Yet still, I wonder how long this Los Angeles—a city of vibrant neighborhoods, of “urban/wild,” of slapdash architecture and “wildstyle” mixing—will linger?

For me, After/Image is an exploration of that Los Angeles: A city that, for all of its projected, warmth and ease may not reach out to you, but rather requires that you delve in and find your place within it.

 

After/Image is the result of this award-winning journalist’s years of contemplating and writing about the arts, culture, and social issues of Los Angeles, always with an emphasis on the place and the identity of the people who liveor leavehere. As a staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly, Lynell entered place after place that makes the city tick, met person after person, and encountered the cumulative heart of the city. Her interpretations of their core are at the heart of After/Image. She continues to explore all aspects of this great whole called Los Angeles. Her instincts about the city are in sync with the ACP mantra: no single book can capture the entire history or the entire scope of the city. It is a place with many pieces, and many stories to tell. And yet, with After/Image we at ACP believe Lynell George proves that every mantra can be adjusted.


[06-June-2017]