Letter to the Author: Holy Land by D.J. Waldie

September 10, 2014

Dear D.J Waldie,

My name is Jasmine Ruffin and during my college English 115 course, we read your memoir holy land. I found your novel very interesting because I grew up in Irvine and have spent a great deal of time in the Long Beach and Lakewood area. Many of the subtle comments that you made I found fascinating because of their validity to my life and the things that I observed while growing up. The attitudes of the people in response to the issues in town as well as the way you structured holy land, were intriguing. When reading, your work caused me to pose many questions in relation to your intentions behind the way that you addressed the construction of the city and the attitudes of the people.

The city of Irvine which I live has many of those “utopian qualities” that were said to be present in your city such as perfectly planned out houses, shopping centers and scenery. Irvine was planned in the 1960s and established in 1971 and based off of the novel many of the little details that you mentioned were profoundly related to the attitudes of the people in my city today. When reading you addressed the placement of the trees throughout Lakewood and stated it was “because tress are thought to encourage business growth [and] the state’s redevelopment law encourages cities to plant trees with borrowed money” (26). I found this statement amusing because when comparing it to Irvine, they had the same mindset of having x amount of trees per every area. This can be the because of the initial “suburban blueprint” city development but ironically the trees being for business growth rather than being planted out of concern for the air quality of the city is something than many people tend to overlook. This also caused me to wonder your standpoint in regards to environmentalism and how you let it play out through the novel. You would constantly add in comments about the complaints of the people in relation to trees being in the way or removing the grass to place in a concrete patio and I am curious about the level of importance you placed on natural beauty. Many things noted in your novel were in regards to the appearance giving the message that people in society today are so focused on the social aspect of living and living a specific way, with specific standards and ideas of how a city should look rather than really allowing for a community to develop on its own.

Your novel really got me to thinking about how we view our communities and the mindset of those who live there and how it affects us. It made me realize how important it really is to take a closer look at the world around me and to consider the message that holy land was trying to send. Thank you for writing holy land and contributing another great literature work and I appreciate the time and effort that went into creating your book.

Sincerely,

Jasmine V. Ruffin