[dropcap size=big]R[/dropcap]ick Nagano is thirty-two, broke, and still a student.
The only son of blue-collar Japanese immigrants and USC history doctoral student desperately needs a job to fund his final year of graduate school and finish his dissertation. Life changes for Rick when Mrs. W., a wealthy white woman from one of Los Angeles’s founding families, hires him to transcribe over a thousand pages of her private handwritten journals at her old Bel Air estate. The unwitting student learns tough lessons about power, wealth, class, education, and the seduction of living archives in Nina Revoyr’s new novel, A Student of History.
The Los Angeles-based author’s acclaimed novels have earned literary awards, book prizes, and recognition by O: Oprah Magazine. Even Jay Pritchett can be seen reading Revoyr’s celebrated second novel, Southland, on ABC’s Modern Family. Known for her rich descriptions and spot-on renderings of places, people, and historical eras, Revoyr’s first five novels feature page-turning, engrossing stories about memorable characters in vivid settings, from the rugged Sierra Mountains and central Coast of California to the plains of rural Wisconsin.
Her sixth and latest novel is no exception. It explores the familiar themes of class, race, and the economic contradictions of living in Los Angeles through the eyes of a thirty-something first-generation Japanese American humanities graduate student struggling to find value in his work — a character we don’t meet every day in fiction or elsewhere in popular culture. Revoyr sat with L.A. Taco to chat about her new book, the importance of students and teachers, and her favorite tacos in L.A.