California is gradually climbing out of the recession, but the economic downturn has done some collateral damage to the American Dream. People are struggling to stay in or climb into the middle class. Writer Jim Gavin's "Middle Men" is a collection of stories about characters old and young, all of them adrift in California. Book critic Oscar Villalon says the Los Angeles author's first book makes the argument that anxiety and bewilderment might be a permanent state.
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