Maya's riveting debut collection of essays takes the reader by the heart and throat, and never lets go. Part poetic autobiography, part harbinger of a new critical sensibility to emerge from colliding world cultures, Walking Around with Fante and Bukowski fuses a poet's fire and a journalist's unblinking eye. The essays here unfold as entertainingly as novels. The title piece, "Walking Around with Fante and Bukowski," is a gripping quest to find a remnant of a lost-and-found L.A. literary masterpiece. "Staring into Vaginas," looks at the photographic legacy of a seedy Hollywood strip club and...