‘The Great Gatsby’ Black reimagining spotlights West Adams Heights

In 2022, Keira Davis Lori heard a story about KCRW “Curbed Los Angeles” About the residents of South La’s West Adams Heights, nicknamed Sugar Hill after a community of wealthy black Harlemites. Lori got acquainted with the Luxurious Academic Award actress Hatti McDaniel’s award hosted at the Shujer Hill Palace, realized that there is a hidden black history awaiting her to discover. But how the charming historical novel “The Great Mann” created a story that condemns as the ability of Lurie to re -invent itself as it is with Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, the famous criticism of the American dream, which provides a stone for the novel.

Lori, 52, grew up in Santa Cruz, far from the neighborhood in which McDaniel, Louis Bevers, Agli Waters and other black actors and photographers of “The Great Mann”. While the family visited regularly in Los Angeles, Lori remained up north, where she drafted the book “Sex, Murder and Double Killing”. Soon I followed with two other puzzles. With the encouragement of her success, Lori Los Angeles hit to continue her dream of entering into the TV book room. The book of the book for 2007 was postponed this goal, even if it was surrounded by writing three exciting novels, and it was revealing, “Capitalism is wrapped in a romantic novel.”

By the time when I heard about Schujer Hill and her famous residents, Lori was ready to face a more accurate challenge. But many literary factors were not accepted to change this type. “It was as if Marlon James had moved from writing the books to” a [Brief] “The Seven Killing History,” says the famous Jamaican writer and his Booker’s -winning man. But as Lori continues to search in the neighborhood and its history, she knew that she should tell her story, even if she was using “The Great Gatsby” as the north proved a problem.

“I am a fans of Fitzgeralds, a huge, although there is a line in this book always bothered me,” says Laurie. It indicates Nick Carway’s reference to “two countries and a girl” when you see three rich black people passing in a white limousine. “Although he might have been used to laugh in 1925, he was insulting,” Lori says of the scene. “In the aftermath of the red summer in 1919 [when a record number of race riots and lynchings of Black Americans occurred in the U.S.] And destroy Black Wall Street in the 1921 Tolsa Riot RiotFitzgerald says a lot about the American cultural climate at the time. “

Was it impressive to use the most famous Fitzrarald novel to frame the life of a vibrant black pocket, which is competing with its prosperity, Jay Gatsby and his ilk? Certainly, Lori says, adding: “By a black re -imagination for” The Great Gatsby “, I tried to marry a family story with an unknown part of the history of Los Angeles.”

The family’s story is narrated by Charlie Tramil III lens, one of the old warriors in World War II, through the violence he witnessed in the battlefield and at home at Jim Crow Virginia. Charlie arrives at Los Angeles looking for a new start and re -communicating with his cousin Margie, with whom he shares axial childhood experiences. But Margie, who is now passing alongside Margaret, got rid of the past and married Terns Lewis, Vice President of Golden State for mutual life, Luises lives with their son in Schujer Hill, alongside McDaniel, Bevers, and Norman or.

Charlie soon washed away in the world of the wealthy black elite in Los Angeles, a mixture of real Angelinus such as John and Fada Summerfil Dunbar Hotel; Magnets-Water Water and Lina Horn; Fictional characters including James Man, the mysterious black businessman recently arrived at Schujer Hill who hosts luxury concerts unlike anything that Charlie saw: “The air is flavored by inflated perfumes and dirt cigars. Everywhere around the diamond is a sparkle of brown structures, golden watches against brown painters. The only white things are the walls.”

Man Charlie, who deals with the recently discharged veteran warrior for his first filmed and good wine, is, but he quickly continued in his endeavor to reunite with Margaret, the love of his life since he met the two about 10 years ago when both lived in the south.

“By re -imagining” The Great Gatsby “, she tried to marry a family story with an unknown part of the history of Los Angeles,” said Keira Davis Lori.

(YVette Roman Photography)

Like the classic interference of the Fitzgerald of West EGG and East EGG in “Gatsby”, “The Great Mann” revolves around new money versus old – overlapping such as Mann and The Entertainers for businessmen such as Houston and Somalefille. But Lori “tried not to invent defects” in her historical characters by performing her homework, account sources in black newspapers, self -biographies and even messages between Houston and the leader of NAACP Walter White to photograph these frictions.

“The Great Mann” revolves around the re -invention of themselves amid the facts and contradictions of time. Like black actors who played maids but used a black “help” in real life. Or the controversy over the stereotypical roles that depict black actors. Among them was Delilla Johnson, the black maid filmed by Al -Qudhas in the movie “IMITION OF Life” for the year 1934. It is a discussion that was inserted into “The Great Mann” when he tells Marguerite and Terrance Charlie that the house of Beavers, where he will remain and many of them will be paid, is paid compared to “with black shame”. As dealt with in the novel, there are more wonderful topics such as the invitation to White for a lighter century to get roles on her fellow dark skin such as McDaniel or Beavers.

But the engine that launches the “Great Mann” plot, which distinguishes it from “Gatsby”, is Creatives Black Battle and business owners who faced his adherence to their property. A clause was placed in thousands of property actions in 1902 the housing covenants restricted at that time West Adams highlands and many other Los Angeles County Communities have been developedThe sale of homes to anyone “unlike the white or Caucasian race.” But some white sellers sold property to black buyers anyway, who then had to fight white groups – such as West Adams Heights Assn. – To prevent evacuation from their homes.

To say how the black sulfar hill population in court would spoil the enjoyment of this amazing story, which put Lurie on a new path in writing historical imagination. She has another project to take root, but now, she is only grateful to find her place. “It was a journey,” as she says about the fluctuations and turns in her life in writing, “but writing about the historical life of blacks seems to be home to me, what I was supposed to do.”

“The Great Mann” will discuss at the VRONAN Library at 7 pm June 10; Diesel, Library at 6:30 pm June 11; Shufali wrote at 6:30 pm June 19.