“suburban memoir”

  D.J. Waldie’s Holy Land is a “suburban memoir” that examines two generations of California suburbanites in the years after the Second World War. Waldie examines both the boom in economic activity represented by the rise of the suburbs and the ways in which American life was reimagined by the new homeowners and, subsequently, their children. What does Waldie’s memoir tell us about this moment in California history? How does he understand the range of suburban development, the emergence of new municipalities, and the evolution of attitudes towards the suburbs over time?