Meet Me in the Garden

The novel portrays several overlapping historical realities of mid-20th-century California, grounding its characters’ struggles in the period’s social and political turbulence. The narrative climaxes during the 1965 Watts Uprising in Los Angeles, which the characters witness firsthand. This real-life rebellion was ignited on August 11, 1965, by the arrest of a young Black man, Marquette Frye, after a traffic stop. The ensuing confrontation with police and Frye’s family drew a crowd, and long-simmering resentments over police brutality, residential segregation, and economic inequality erupted into six days of conflict. The uprising ultimately resulted in “34 deaths, over 1,000 injuries, nearly 4,000 arrests, and the destruction of property valued at $40 million” (“Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles).” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, 2026). The novel depicts these events, including the first person killed in the conflict, “a twenty-one-year-old colored man named Leon Posey” (361), who died at the hands of police. This historical context informs the characters’ fear, anger, and activism within a key moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

The book also explores the brutal realities of mid-century psychiatric care. Delphine is involuntarily institutionalized at California’s Camarillo State Hospital, which operated from 1936 to 1997 and “reached its peak in 1955, with over 7,000 patients” (“Camarillo State Hospital Documents and Oral Histories.” California State University, 11 Jun. 2025). The novel accurately portrays obsolete and dangerous treatments of the era, such as insulin coma therapy, a risky procedure used between the 1930s and 1950s that involved inducing daily comas with large doses of insulin. Delphine expresses terror at the thought of this and electroshock therapy, fearing the treatments could break her bones. Papa’s story highlights another grim practice: the burial of unclaimed patients in unmarked graves. After Maman fails to claim his body from the East Louisiana State Hospital, Odette discovers he has been interred in the hospital’s sanctuary under a nameless wooden cross. This reflects a common practice at state-run institutions, where tens of thousands of patients whose families were poor, unreachable, or estranged were buried anonymously on hospital grounds.

The criminalization of homosexuality during the “lavender scare” also deeply shapes the characters’ lives. This moral panic, which paralleled the Red Scare, led to the persecution of gay and lesbian individuals in the federal government. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which barred queer individuals from federal employment by defining “sexual perversion” as a security risk. The novel references the real-life 1953 arrest of civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, who was jailed in Pasadena on a “morals charge” for having consensual sex with two men in a parked car. This event, which nearly ended Rustin’s career, emphasizes the severe legal and social persecution faced by gay men. In the novel, the fear of similar exposure forces Felix into a marriage of convenience with Odette, a common arrangement for gay individuals seeking to avoid ruin during this oppressive period. His fear of blackmail reflects the real dangers of the era, when exposure could lead to job loss, social ostracization, and imprisonment.

Finally, the novel situates Al’s career within the context of Black-owned businesses that flourished in Los Angeles during the Great Migration. From the 1920s through the 1950s, Central Avenue became the vivid hub of Black life, creating a thriving community of businesses, jazz clubs, and cultural institutions. Al’s storyline intertwines with Dootsie Williams’s Dootone Records, a real-life Black-owned label founded in Watts in 1951. Williams established the label to promote Black artists who were often exploited by white-owned companies. Dootone achieved national success with the 1954 doo-wop hit “Earth Angel” by The Penguins, a song mentioned in the novel. Al’s eventual job at the Dooto Music Center reflects the real-world success of Black entrepreneurs like Williams, who created essential economic and cultural opportunities for their communities in a segregated city.