The Next Wave of California Archetypes:

A review by Nikki San Pedro

 

Ari Rosenschein, “Coasting”
Magnolia Press, 2019
180 pages, softcover, $10.47
 

When I first moved to LA from Toronto in 2009, I read a selection of books set in my new city and braced myself for the coked-up wannabes that Bret Easton Ellis warned of. With the insight of a socio-anthropologist and the familiarity of your favorite bartender, Ari Rosenschein introduces us to new West Coast archetypes who follow the tradition of California Dreaming into the 21st century.

Most of the stories in “Coasting” take place in our Los Angeles backyard, where Rosenschein measures time in traffic jams and guitar solos. The characters that occupy these pages may as well be my neighbors: dreamers who eschew the pragmatic futures our parents wanted for us in favor of a frivolous present. Now a nine-year resident of Echo Park, I swear I’ve spotted Matt from the story “Meet Cute” at the Silverlake Intelligentsia clocking in hours reselling movie memorabilia from eBay.

The other part of the “Meet Cute” equation is Tracy whose epileptic episode allows Matt to rise to the occasion as an unlikely hero and protect her from injury mid-seizure when his initial intentions were to get laid. Like a few characters in this collection, he reappears in a later story, not obviously wiser, though steadily sober.

Out of his league in the palatial Beverly Hills residence of a movie star, Matt is a different kind of hero in “Personal Inventory”: an AA sponsor. A keeper of Hollywood secrets. Someone who is allowed to cross social spheres by virtue of his sobriety and there to sherpa his sponsee Jim through his court-ordered twelve steps. At the same time, Matt is a cautionary tale. What happens when you give up on your dreams and settle for mediocrity? Sobriety is the only badge of honor!

Socioeconomic disparity is a common dynamic in “Coasting” where the sun-soaked vistas and generational iterations of the California Gold Rush indiscriminately draw opportunists from all corners to grab ever-dwindling resources the coast has to offer. Across vignettes, Rosenschein alerts us that there are always hotter recording artists, wealthier stars, desperate addicts, predatory cults—all whose presence makes the Pacific a little less pacific as each of us dreamers shoot our shot toward our own kaleidoscopic versions of success.

Common side effects of pursuing happiness include: Clouded judgement from general horniness and heartbreak. Looming homelessness motivating industry. Snobiness to mask an inferiority complex.

“Coasting” is a necessary wake-up call to the 21st century California dream that we Angelenos inevitably tell Alexa (or Siri or whichever AI of choice) to hit snooze on anyway as a means of survival in this real-life movie set. As a part of my own California dream, I’m writing an immigration memoir wherein I speak to the seductive qualities that brought me to the Best Coast in the first place. Despite so many heartbreaks and frustrations that come along with waiting for my green card ten years and counting, “Coasting” reminds me of the strange alchemy that makes anything possible and keeps me fighting for my spot in the city of stars.

 

Nikki San Pedro is a Philippine-born Canadian citizen living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Rats Ass Review, and Angels Flight literary west. She is currently the managing editor of Jaune Magazine and working on an immigration memoir titled “American Dreaming: A Millennial’s Guide to Legal Immigration in the 21st Century.”