Héctor Tobar is a son of Los Angeles, a city of “perpetual cultural mixing.” Here, he guides readers through the books and writers that cut through the city’s layers. By Héctor Tobar “True West” is a ...

Sam Shepard wasn’t born a cowboy. The actor and writer made himself into one. The dusty blue jeans, cattle drives, and folksy drawl suited his taciturn profile, giving Reagan-era America someone ...

Two new books take up that most durable of American subjects -- the uneasy space between what we imagine ourselves to be and what the record shows. In "Coyote: The Dramatic Lives of Sam Shepard," ...