Vanessa Hua explores suburban paranoia in 'Coyoteland'

"“I'm walking and I hear what sounds like high heels clattering, almost like ladies outside of a nightclub,” Hua says. “And I turn, and it's the clatter of deer hooves. I see a coyote running at me full speed, chased by two deer.” Astonished at how the wildlife trio eventually ran right past her, Hua began thinking about predator, prey and territory."

"Unlike other canonical works that might feature the urban landscape as an actual character, Coyoteland instead captures the machinations of upmarket suburbia in all its forms. In the fictional hamlet of El Nido, real estate syndicates and NIMBY coalitions mobilize to outmaneuver each other. Housing developments threaten people, but not people the builders expected to threaten. White nuclear families dismiss their own mixed-race ancestry while exhibiting fear over their mixed-race neighbors."

"Jocks, nannies and alienated teenagers interact in unpredictable ways. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and everyone has something to hide. The suburb as character arrives as a wonderful follow-up to one of Hua's previous novels, A River of Stars, which took readers deep into the gritty underbelly of San Francisco's Chinatown, in ways clearly informed by Hua's career as a newspaper reporter."

"For Coyoteland, she fled across the bridge to the East Bay Hills. “I've written about cityscapes or covered it as a journalist,” Hua says, “but I felt like suburbia, or in particular these suburb”"

An early morning walk in the East Bay Hills leads Vanessa Hua to a scene involving a coyote running at full speed, chased by two deer. The moment sparks thinking about predator, prey, and territory while the wider country experiences racial reckoning over police brutality and Bay Area wildfires transform the sky. Coyoteland centers on upmarket suburbia rather than treating the city as a character. In El Nido, real estate syndicates and NIMBY coalitions maneuver against each other as housing developments threaten unexpected people. White nuclear families deny mixed-race ancestry while fearing mixed-race neighbors. Jocks, nannies, and alienated teenagers interact unpredictably, and suspicion and secrets shape relationships.

Read at East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda