Set under the brutally sunny skies of Depression-era Los Angeles, a tale of obsession that focuses on a city both exotic and vulgar, glamorous and raunchy--a place of heat and dust. Full of imports--palm trees from Egypt and people from everywhere in search of health and wealth, fame and fortune--L. A. is the city of first and last resort, where all dreams are supposed to come true. So it is for Arturo Bandini, the ambitious son of Italian immigrants who dreams of becoming a famous novelist and marrying a beautiful blonde, and Camilla Lopez, a Mexican who longs to marry a WASP and shed her last name. In a time when Anglo-Chicano relations hang by tattered threads, Bandini and Camilla collide with one another, fighting the city and themselves to make their dreams come true.