Ecology of Fear is not just about natural disasters but the disaster of culture, hate crimes being the logical climax: Tina Roxanne Rodriguez (1993), Ruben Vaughn, Jody Robinson, Vernon Flournoy, Rodd Jackson (1994), Mike Robinson (1995), Thien Minh Lu, George Mondragon, Jerry Jordan (1996).
Disaster is in the SoCal ground; it's in the imaginations of the artists who work here (Ironically, Davis misses that Birth of a Nation was filmed in SoCal). Davis notes, "An arroyo differs from a glen or hollow in that episodic storms form them and they are studied by 'cusp catastrophe' models" (11). Of course there are earthquakes and fires to catalog, but tornadoes?! Yes. Rolling up past the Pacific Palisades into downtown and up into the San Gabriel Valley.
Ultimately, location becomes about class. For example, Davis notes that after one earthquake, it Beverly Hills residents received 1,400 FEMA grants (48). Meanwhile, over 4,000 applications for SNA loans are rejected in The Crenshaw district because of lack of savings for collateral (51). When speaking about the deadly flea-bearing rats, Davis uses a flourish of alliteration: "Because of congestion in poor neighborhoods, plagues have often become pogroms" (249).
One omission from Davis' extensive survey of California as a setting for disaster is John Fante's Ask the Dust, made all the more supportive of Davis' thesis by Robert Towne's adaptation in 2006.
Ecology of Fear blends literary criticism with other types of non-fiction, making a leap into the SoCal psyche and trying to land us in the dark, scary spot.
