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I was startled to see Wambaugh's article ranked "low importance" in the California portal. As a tenured professor of humanities I've taught courses on California Culture for twenty five years. Wambaugh was virtually the poet laureate of Southern California for twenty years, documenting the rising tide of "diversity" and the shift in cultures. He was LA's novelist the way Neil Simon was NYC's dramatist during those years, a public figure, not just an author. The novels have the quality which Steven Marcus claimed Dickens had-- they described social phenomena before the academics noticed it. People learned about their own LA by reading Wambaugh, the way they had once learned about the London around them by reading Dickens. Both men are compulsively readable, as well. In addition, his success was part of the rise of the American bestseller, thanks to his association with publicist Jay Allen. There is a famous story of every cop in the city buying a copy of New Centurions when it was released, vaulting the book into the best seller list and public notice. His nonfiction is sober and influential. The Onion Field may be the best of his books as literature, and remains a fine critique of the criminal justice system. He was frequently called a conservative but his love for Mexican culture and immigrants moderates that. He seems more of a working class man who believes actions have consequences. The tragedy of a son's death in Mexico, an auto accident, is the rupture in his career. There are great opportunities for research. Anyone trying to understand the Weltanschauung of Southern California from 1970- 2000 should turn to Wambaugh. Profhum (talk) 06:37, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
