Real California Living is a book I’ve been waiting for. Sure, Jennifer Murvin knows how to hook you and reel you in; sure, she knows how to write a great sentence. For me, the genius of these stories is that Murvin knows how to sink you deep into a particular consciousness in such a way that you can’t easily shake the world of the story long after you’re done reading it. Each story becomes a living, breathing thing. Here is a writer with not just a distinct voice but a distinct vision, a worldview as singular as a fingerprint, and I’ll read anything she writes. This is the best collection I’ve read in a long time. — John McNally, The Fear of Everything