These Women

Starred review from February 24, 2020
Fish shack owner Dorian Williams, one of several working-class women at the center of this heartbreaking novel, has done little to fill the void in her life in the 15 years since her teenage daughter, Lecia, was murdered in 1999—the 13th and presumed final victim of a serial killer who was never caught. Then one evening, near her fish shack in South Central L.A., a woman’s body is dumped exactly as Lecia was, throat slit and a plastic bag over her face. Without sacrificing narrative drive, Pochoda (Wonder Valley) lets her story unfold organically and impressionistically, through the eyes of her distinctive female characters, who include Julianna, now a hard-partying cocktail waitress but once the child Lecia babysat the night she died; undersized Hispanic LAPD detective Essie, who knows all too well what it’s like not to be taken seriously; and former hooker Feelia, left for dead back in 1999 after Lecia’s murder, whose potentially critical information the police repeatedly ignore. This deep dive into the lives of women too often unseen in the shadows makes them vividly unforgettable. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, Inkwell Literary Management.

March 1, 2020
Six women struggle in the shadow of a serial killer who was never apprehended. "Thirteen girls dead. Fifteen years gone. By Dorian's count, and her count is right, three other serial murderers have been hauled in, tried, and locked up in Los Angeles in that time. But not a single arrest for the murder of girls along Western." Dorian is a white woman who owns a fry shop on the edge of a neighborhood known mainly for prostitution and drugs. Her half-black daughter was the 13th and last of the girls found in the street, discarded, with their throats cut. Unlike the others, her daughter was a babysitter, not a prostitute, but no one seems to care about that distinction. No one seems to care about these murders at all except one babbling woman who may have been the sole survivor of the attacks, and no one is listening to her. Then, 15 years later, more girls turn up dead. Pochoda (Wonder Valley, 2017, etc.) again tells a story of Angelenos on the margins. These women's stories intersect at the murders, and their connections are unraveled by a tiny, bike-riding cop named Essie Perry. It is Perry to whom Dorian comes to complain about the poisoned hummingbirds being left at her fry shop and her home. "What are the chances that a woman who shows up at the station with a box full of dead birds had a daughter killed in nearly identical fashion to three victims found off Western?" wonders Essie. This seamy thriller is loaded with feminist intentions, ideas about photography (including an homage to Larry Sultan), a quick dip into women's boxing, and more. Unsurprisingly for Pochoda, the strongest character is the LA neighborhood itself. Gritty, sometimes cheesy, very on-the-nose with its message--but satisfying as a murder mystery.

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May 1, 2020
Pochoda's fourth novel, following Wonder Valley (2017), takes place in 2014 in South Los Angeles, where several prostitutes have been found murdered with plastic bags over their heads. The killings rock a group of loosely connected women, including Dorian, whose daughter, along with several other women, was murdered in a similar way 15 years ago. Dorian's daughter, Lecia, wasn't a prostitute, a detail Dorian has come to realize hasn't made a bit of difference in the police investigation. But this time around, a young vice detective named Essie, who is haunted by a tragedy of her own, is doggedly pursuing the case, having noticed the similarities between the killings in the 1990s and the more recent murders. And Julianna, an exotic dancer whom Leica babysat for when Julianna was a child, is devastated when a woman she looked up to as a mentor is so brutally killed. With raw, visceral prose, Pochoda vividly evokes L.A.'s distinctive cityscape and the burdens and threats women face there as female bodies are commodified and where women are the targets of horrific violence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from April 1, 2020

A seedy but changing neighborhood in Los Angeles is home to five women, unknowingly linked to one man, who live their lives on the margins of society. Strippers and dancers, mothers and daughters, each tells her gritty, unflinching tale of perpetual poverty and life on the street. When more than one young woman is brutally murdered, a petite and mildly disgraced, gum-chewing Latina police detective named Essie pieces together the clues that reveal a 15-year trail of death. No one listens to her. No one listens to any of these vulnerable, hard-bitten women. Drug use and sex work are prevalent, but some turn to art to express this tough lifestyle. Others lash out in the quietude of the cemetery. Laced with grief and rage, racism and sexism, this edgy urban drama centers upon a serial killer's obsession that targets women of color living a lifestyle that garners little sympathy. VERDICT Pochoda (Wonder Valley) stuns with this disquieting literary thriller rife with descriptive street language and violence. It is complex, intense, and enthralling. Fans of Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room will experience a similar sense of feeling both captivated and bereft. [See Prepub Alert, 10/28/19.]--Gloria Drake, Oswego P.L. Dist., IL

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2019

We barely meet the serial killer featured in this new work from Pochoda, which follows the Strand Award-winning, Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist Wonder Valley. Instead, we sink into the lives of five women affected by his actions: hard-driving, hard-living dancer Julianna; perceptive vice cop Essie; push-the-envelope performance artist Marella; head-ever-down Anneke; and Dorian, still mourning her daughter's unsolved killing. Two murders in their neighborhood shatter their lives and compel them to act. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.