I know I posted about this book before, but I’ve been doing a deep dive into Dark City: The Real Los Angeles Noir by Jim Heimann the last couple of days.
This is another one of those huge Taschen coffee table books that is so big and unwieldy, it threatens to stay on the bookshelf, looking pretty. But I’ve been meaning to read the thing from start to finish, and as I’ve dug into it this week, it doesn’t disappoint. It’s tremendously well done, from the writing by Jim Heimann to the thousands of vintage black-and-white photographs and of course the over-the-top Taschen book layout. They even have a number of reproduction pulp magazines bound into the book throughout the chapters. Good Lord, how much did that cost? Best not to ask, just appreciate that they did it.
The book might as well be called “LA Confidential,” it reads much like a real life history of the dark corners of Los Angeles, covering much of the same subjects as the movie of the same name. There are stories about corruption, crime, gambling, murders, drag queens, health and fitness gurus, bootleggers, and a whole chapter that is really piquing my interest, covering the explosion of evangelical megachurches and religious con artists in Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s. Did you know that the first megachurch was in Los Angeles?
If this sort of thing fascinates you, this book is essential reading. I picked it up a few days ago, and now I can’t put the thing down. Los Angeles has always been a complex city. There’s a lot of great things here, and there’s always been a seedy, dark element. It’s fascinating to read the history of that dark side of the City of Angels. Recommend!
See photos of interior spreads at Deke’s original Facebook post!
