Daniel A. Olivas is the unofficial literary ambassador of Latino L.A. Besides being a founding member and weekly contributor to the go-to literary blog La Bloga (www.labloga.blogspot.com), he assembled and edited in 2008 a long-overdue anthology of Latino fiction set within one of the most iconic cities on the west coast. Latinos in Lotusland explores the love-hate relationship that writers have for a landscape that loves-hates back.

The colorful spectrum of L.A.’s complex and diverse environment, from its impoverished barrios to its glamourous Hollywood sets, from the distressing traffic jams to the breath-taking views, is represented inside the pages of this collection. The anthology doesn’t attempt to define the city so much as it walks the reader through it, Latino style, which is to say, via a cultural lens that recognizes the Spanish language, immigrant history, ethnic pride (and shame), and the everyday tensions of living, loving or loathing the city of angels (a.k.a. El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula).

Olivas adopts that strategy in his third collection of stories, Anywhere But L.A., a title that can be read as either a wish for escape (“I want to be anywhere but L.A.”) or a declaration of loyalty (“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but L.A.”). In either case, the city serves as a compass for many of the characters who seek orientation, even if the story does not take place in L.A.

There’s Tonyo, for example, in the story “Las Dos Fridas.” He’s an Angeleno who flees to Mexico City in order to recover from a failed relationship. When he comes upon the famous Frida Kahlo painting, the power of the art piece, plus his distance from the city that witnessed his heartbreak, allows him to achieve perspective and emotional footing.

In the story “San Diego,” Sonia works hard to accept her widowed father’s new life, which he can only accomplish by moving out of L.A. and finding a girlfriend who espouses a different set of values than his wife did.

And in the touching story “Franz Kafka in Fresno,” a man moves to L.A. in order to keep a safe distance from his father, whom he blames for having marked his fate by naming him after the absurdist writer. Only after his father’s death does Franz come to terms with the true cultural legacy of that name.

Though Olivas continues to explore the compressed short story form, he has broken new ground with a number of longer pieces in this collection. “After the Revolution,” “The Fabricator,” and “La Queenie” all benefit from the patient unfolding of the story lines that offer serious social critiques of gender, identity and religion.

As a follow-up to his two previous story collections (Assumption and Other Stories and Devil Talk), Anywhere But L.A. completes a satisfying California trilogy that observes, interacts and imagines the many dimensions of the American Southwest through an honest and genuine lens.

Michael Jaime-Becerra, Every Night is Ladies Night, Harper Perennial, 2004.

Felicia Luna Lemus, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties, Seal Press, 2007.

Manuel Muñoz, The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, Algonquin, 2007.

Daniel A. Olivas, editor, Latinos in Lotusland, Bilingual Press, 2008.

Luis J. Rodríguez, The Republic of East L.A., Harper Perennial, 2003.

Rigoberto González (www.rigobertogonzalez.com) is an award-winning author, book critic and associate professor with the Rutgers-Newark Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.