Literature—the reading it, the writing it—has a reputation of being a solitary endeavor, best conducted in dark, chilly garrets. But the Los Angeles sun has a way of burning off clichés, allowing them space to grow or morph or meet their untimely demise. Plot twist: Literature is social. Especially in Los Angeles, where the terrain commingles with the built world. Here, people (oh, all the people!) hold the subtext, like a palimpsest of words and worlds, one on top of the other, strung along into a city’s grammar: an ornate sediment that contains lives we couldn’t know, but relate to.