The Left Coast of Paradise: California and the American Heart

Moore introduces us to ""Peggy,'' a feminist lesbian into S & M, who explains in matter-of-fact language what, exactly, she and her partners in pleasure/pain do. We also meet a black mortician named Ragsdale who explains why black undertakers traditionally have been looked up to, even admired, in their communities in contrast to their white counterparts. Moore's reminiscence of her Arkansas grandmother (``brutal, powerful, repulsive'') leaves a nightmarishly indelible impression. Other characters include a female dwarf, a male hairdresser, a pimp, a Hollywood-bruised English professor, an ``evil'' elephant named Cindy, a blues singer and Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse. A writer who can do much with little, Moore is particularly evocative in her description of places. Anyone who reads her piece on the San Diego Greyhound bus station will not likely forget it, a tribute to the power of her writing talent. (September 29)