RaveThe Washington Post\"...The Mirage Factory reflects a Trumpian nostalgia that has infected even our sanctuary city. In the 21st century, as L.A. becomes a whiter place (because of declining immigration and high housing prices), its still mostly white elites — especially its media, intelligentsia and environmentalists — have developed a real fetish for the smaller and whiter L.A. of the early 20th century, which they portray as a more livable place.
In so doing, they have made the history Krist covers far too important. The truth is that today’s Los Angeles was built not by Mulholland or Griffith in the 1920s but by a far more diverse array of characters in the 1980s and 1990s. Chief among them was Tom Bradley, an African American UCLA grad and cop who, despite dramatic mistakes and personal flaws, made Los Angeles a truly international city during 20 years as mayor. That Bradley has never been the subject of a major biography by a writer of Krist’s caliber is the real crime against nature ... Of course, it reeks of hypocrisy for any Angeleno, including me, to complain about endless sequels. And Krist’s book is so good that, like the best movies, it ends up inverting the genre. In his telling, people around the world came to L.A. because they desperately needed a great city with perfect weather, space to make bigger pictures and unmoored souls who were open to seeing God in new ways ... By the end, a world without Los Angeles seems unimaginable.\
