L.A. Women
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3.4 • 9 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“A breezy retro novel with bite.”
—L.A. Times
“A 1970s-Laurel Canyon version of My Brilliant Friend.”—The Atlantic
An electrifying novel about the complicated friendship between two ambitious writers and the ultimate artistic betrayal: one writes a book based upon the other's life, revealing everything…from the author of Reese's Book Club Pick Before We Were Innocent.
After a steady descent from literary stardom, Lane Warren is back. She’s secured a new book deal based off the life of her sometime friend and, more often, rival Gala Margolis. Lane’s only problem is that notorious free spirit Gala has been missing for months.
Ten years earlier, Gala was a charming socialite and Lane was a Hollywood outsider amidst the glittering 1960s L.A. party scene. Though they were never best friends, Lane found Gala sharp and compelling. Gala liked that Lane took her seriously. They were both writers. They were drawn to each other.
That was until Gala’s star began to rise, and Lane grew envious. Then Lane did something that she wouldn’t ever be able to take back…changing the trajectories of both their lives.
Bold, dazzling, and crackling with tension, L.A. Women plunges readers into the legendary parties and unparalleled creativity of iconic Laurel Canyon, while exploring the impossible choices women face when ambition collides with intimacy. At what cost does great art emerge? And who pays the price?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Berman (The Comeback) evokes Eve Babitz, Joan Didion, and the glamour of the 1960s California literary scene in this exciting tale of a friendship and its dissolution. Magazine writer Lane Warren, who brings to mind Didion, moves from New York City to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s to work on her first novel. At a party, she meets the Babitz-like Gala Margolis, an aspiring writer who leads a free-spirited and sexually adventurous life in Laurel Canyon. Lane and Gala keep bumping into one another at parties and eventually become friends of a sort. After Lane's first novel hits the bestseller list, she encourages Gala to take her writing more seriously. Eventually, Gala gets hired to write a monthly column for Vogue. Later, the friendship turns sour, their breakup fueled by petty jealousies and mutual sabotage, which Berman gradually reveals in a parallel narrative set in 1975, when Lane is working on a thinly disguised novel about her former friend until she learns Gala has disappeared. Berman casts Lane and Gala as vivacious frenemies, and their fights generate real sparks. Readers will surely fall for these two ladies of the canyon.
Customer Reviews
Good but long
Good but long