June 28: The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse

The Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park has a remarkable and fascinating history. Built in the hills northwest of the city’s downtown in the late 1800s and named for the echo of construction workers' voices off the canyon walls, it was the pre-Hollywood home of the film industry, with the famed Sunset Boulevard running through it. Many early film stars settled in the vicinity and everything from early silent films to cowboy and Three Stooges shorts, to Gilligan’s Island and Michael Jackson’s Thriller were shot there. After the stars moved out, political progressives, including Woody Guthrie, moved in. Then, following World War II, a growing number of Latino, African-American, Filipino and Chinese residents, both immigrant and second generation, took their place. Brando Skyhorse grew up there too - the son of a Mexican father raised by a Native American stepfather who gave him his last name. After getting a degree at Stanford, Skyhorse went to New York, where he spent ten years working as a book editor. Now he has a book of his own featuring a series of interrelated stories set in the diverse and distinctive place he once called home.

Who are The Madonnas of Echo Park?

Brando Skyhorse's Pulishers Page

More on the history of Echo Park

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