For a memorable vacation, follow a detective novel instead of your guidebook
Raymond Chandler as a modern denizen Juniper Song fancies herself a modern-day Philip Marlowe, navigating Los Angeles guided more by Raymond Chandler’s masterworks than by Google Maps. Song, the creation of author Steph Cha, is a 20-something Korean-American who uses her private-eye skills to help friends in need. As much as she romanticizes Marlowe’s metropolis, Song’s L.A.
is modern, multicultural and not exclusively masculine. In her city, the neon lights of Koreatown shine more brightly than Hollywood. In Cha’s debut, “Follow Her Home," Song observes this transformation while passing by the Wiltern, a landmark theater “with an ancient marquee, a place that had seen Koreatown sprout up and around it, leaving no lot unturned." To find the disparate worlds of L.A., Song might send you to Canter’s Deli on Fairfax Ave.
“I couldn’t say what slice of Los Angeles made up the clientele," Song says on one visit. “But it was generously cut, with patrons ranging in age, respectability, wealth, and sobriety." Having a fictional detective as a travel companion means seeking out their haunts. But by inhabiting the preoccupations and obsessions of these characters, you’ll also make your own discoveries.
You’ll find Song’s polyglot present and idealized noirish past intersecting at the Prince, a Koreatown bar bathed in red light and decorated with plush cushioning, used as a shooting location for Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown." The decor evokes Marlowe’s L.A., but the menu, ranging from boilermaker combos to spicy sea snails, is thoroughly Californian-Korean. It’s as if Song built the bar of her dreams, where Tinseltown and Koreatown converge. The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in its articles as outlets for
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