“That’s what I did instead of going to school, and one of the genres I read was the California novelists—Dashiell Hammett and Joseph Hansen and Raymond Chandler, who was wonderful, and then Ross Macdonald. There was always something weird about the California story, as opposed to the New York story, which was about some guy trying to find himself. And Chicago noir is about some guy trying to get ahead in the world. But the story of California seems to be the story of people who are lost and have no identity, and they find out what they thought they were wasn’t really who they were, and their father wasn’t their father, and their uncles were schtupping them and impersonating somebody else. And the noir films, all the guys getting out after World War II with nothing to do and no money except an idea and the Pacific Coast Highway—they’re all the story of what happens now? They were all very influential in my upbringing.”
—David Mamet, on his early reading
- The City of Angels Los Angeles Eyes
- Hollywood Detectives
- Santa Barbara (Santa Theresa)
- Wish They All Could Be California Girls
- They Left Their Hearts in San Francisco
