Los Angeles has had a rough couple of years. Fires have destroyed entire neighborhoods, the Hollywood streaming boom is going bust, ICE raids have torn through neighborhoods, and the city was subjected to an airborne toxic event; the vibes are so bad that a reality-TV villain almost made the mayoral primary. Such crises and anxieties are not exactly new; darkness has always lurked under the bright L.A. sun. People far beyond Southern California know this, in part, because of the homegrown litera