The official website of the author of City of Angles
CITY OF ANGLES
Published by Heliotrope Books
City of Angles is a darkly humorous story of hope, loss, family, and most of all, community, set in modern-day Los Angeles. In this re-imagining of the epic poem The Aeneid of Virgil, Homer V. Innes loses everything in a devastating series of calamities and winds up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. Desperate to put his life back together and find his runaway son, Innes embarks on an epic journey across a Los Angeles that is both familiar and foreign. In the course of his misadventures, he encounters a diverse and eccentric cast of urban characters, from the homeless on Skid Row, to teenage runaways, drag queens, porn stars, and hookers, all of whom contribute to his ultimate epiphany as he seeks his place in the world.
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ADVANCE PRAISE
"City of Angles is an uplifting look at a side of Los Angeles too little seen in fiction. Like John Fante, Loving turns a compassionate and comic eye on the downtrodden and elevates them in his assured debut."
-- Ivy Pochoda, author of These Women
"Like the Book of Job as envisioned by Nathaniel West, City of Angles reminds us that when we disdain the needy, we inevitably become one ourselves. A spellbinding, original work."
—Chip Jacobs, author of Arroyo
"A big-hearted book, full of memorable characters, crackling scenes, and superbly evoked settings, its well-wrought prose sprinkled with tears and spiced with laughs. An unforgettable debut."
--Charles Harper Webb, author of Sidebend World
"Vivid, shimmering prose ... a novel for our time ... both impressive in its literary integrity and bold in its vision ... a work of empathy and compassion."
--MJ Moore, author of For Paris, With Love and Squalor
"Hope and love fill these pages, a modern epic set under the pitiless Southern California skies.”
--Don Cummings, author of Bent But Not Broken
HOW TO ORDER
City of Angles is available now in paper or ebook on IndieBound, Bookshop, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
BIOGRAPHY
William Loving is a former newspaper reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Providence Journal, and Connecticut Post. Raised in Baltimore, Maryland, he lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife Rhonda Hillbery and a cat named Oberon. City of Angles is his first novel.
Twitter: @williamloving
Facebook: williamloving
Instagram: @williamloving
Photo by Deb Squared Photo
EVENTS
SKYLIGHT BOOKS, LOS ANGELES
October 7, 2020
A virtual reading via Crowdcast. Watch the replay:
PASADENA PUBLIC LIBRARY
5:00 pm PST, November 5, 2020
A virtual reading via Zoom.
VROMAN'S BOOKSTORE, PASADENA
6:00 pm PST, December 15, 2020
A virtual reading via Crowdcast. Watch the replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/x2f30h15
PRESS
Reviews, Interviews, Profiles and More
The Providence Journal
"William Loving comes full circle with publication of ‘City of Angles,’ inspired by Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid’ "
Pasadena Weekly
"Former journalist pens his first novel, ‘City of Angles' "
https://pasadenaweekly.com/former-journalist-pens-his-first-novel-city-of-angles/
Honeysuckle
"In the Belly of the Beast: A Mythic New Novel in Wasteland"
https://honeysucklemag.com/in-the-belly-of-the-beast-a-mythic-new-novel-in-wasteland/
Salt Lake Dirt
"William Loving's City of Angles"
Connecticut Post
"Former Connecticut journalist publishes debut novel — at age 65"
Pasadena Star-News
"Three local books for your holiday shopping: ‘Two Summers,’ ‘Galilea, Galilea’ + ‘City of Angles’ "
Drinks With Tony podcast
William Loving #117