The High Price of Freeways

The High Price of Freeways consists of stories, most set in California, that explore the oddity of living in a place where freedom is touted, but its costs are often hidden: abortion, rape, and childbirth form the backdrop for several stories; a pan-sexual comic gets perilously intimate with her handsome acupuncturist; three long-separated triplets reunite and somebody ends up the odd one out; militants establish a black cultural clearinghouse in San Francisco where new identities are forged. Oakland, Berkeley, S.F., Sacramento, Los Angeles — all are crisscrossed with freeways, migrants from the South, and class contradictions. When the locale shifts to New Jersey and Harlem, highways, traffic, bridges and waterways take their toll too.