A delightful aspect of historical fiction is the way the present gives way to the past, shifting our knowledge of the modern world into what it once was. In Marivi Soliven’s new novel, Taxi Dancer (Red Hen Press, 240 pages), we get a time-capsule view of downtown San Diego, a century before it was baseball and tourism, when it was called the Stingaree and the nightclubs were unlike anything resembling the Gaslamp’s current offerings. Using different narrative techniques, including shifting perspectives and points of view, Soliven immerses us in the city, the time period, and the eclectic characters who lived it. It also brings to light the economic inequality and racism of this particular place and era, and causes us to ask whether those injustices have truly disappeared.