"There are cities writers have sought as inspiration; Paris in the '20s, or New York or San Francisco in the '40s and '50s. Then there is Los Angeles, a place poets and writers have avoided or at least never expected to end up in. Once arrived, many found themselves remarkably productive, intrigued with the lost city and a life that often struggles to be heroically elsewhere. L. A. Exile is a guide to the literature, the writers and the physical spaces that have made for what composer Igor Stravinsky called "splendid isolation.""--BOOK JACKET.