Author: marksalzman

When Mark Salzman is invited to visit a writing class at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles’s most violent teenage offenders, he scrambles for a polite reason to decline. He goes—expecting the worst—and is so astonished by what he finds that he becomes a teacher there himself. True Notebooks is an account of Salzman’s first years teaching at Central. Through it, we come to know his students as he did: in their own words. At times impossible and at times irresistible, they write with devastating clarity about their pasts, their fears, their confusions, their regrets, and their hopes.…

In a California monastery, a nun experiences life-changing visions from God — only to learn her spiritual gift may not be what it seems. “A lean, seemingly effortless tour de force… A perfect little novel” (The New Yorker).