L.A. Women

An electrifying novel about the complicated friendship between two ambitious and talented female writers in 1960s Los Angeles and the ultimate artistic betrayal: one writes a book based on the other''s life… from the author of Reese''s Book Club Pick After a steady descent from literary stardom, Lane Warren is back. She’s secured a new book deal based off the life of her sometimes friend and more often rival, notorious free spirit and muse, Gala Margolis. Lane’s only problem is that Gala has been missing for months…nobody can find her. Ten years earlier, Gala was a charming socialite and Lane was a Hollywood outsider amidst the glittering 1960’s L.A. party scene. Though 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 is until Gala’s star began to rise, and Lane grew more envious. Then Lane decided to do something that she wouldn’t ever be able to take back…changing the trajectory of both their lives.

Autorentext

Ella Berman grew up in both Los Angeles and London, where she studied psychology before working at Sony Music. Her debut novel, The Comeback, was selected as a Read with Jenna book club pick, and her follow-up, Before We Were Innocent, was a Reese’s Book Club pick. Raised by two former hippies on the music and art of the 1960s and 70s, she lives in London with her husband, their senior dog, and their daughter.

Leseprobe
One

NOW

Summer 1975

Put yourself in the (finest caviar leather) shoes of Lane Warren. Here, inside the glittering compound in the foothills of Laurel Canyon, she is the person everyone wants to meet-her house is filled with dear friends and shiny young things, and they'd all gut her in an instant if it would make them famous. Because isn't that why they all gather here every Sunday? To prove that they are also people to know? That they too have something to offer the world?

Sometimes, Lane tries to remember when the hunger started in her, but, as always, memories of her early life are hazy, untrustworthy.

Over there, by the towering yucca plant, sits the jaded almost rock star-a local celebrity who never made it past the L.A. city limits. Watch him pretend his hands aren't twitching for the two last quaaludes in his pocket as he recounts the time he almost filled in for David Crosby when the Byrds played the Whisky. And there-just feet away, a French poet regales a crowd with the story of the night he asked Simone de Beauvoir to marry him, a story Lane has heard thirty times in the past decade, a story that has changed ever so slightly with each retelling to the point it is no longer recognizable. And, up the grand staircase, Lane's husband Scotty putting the twins to bed, taking his time so that he can later impress some young ingenue (someone new to L.A. who doesn't know anything yet) with his humble insistence on how equality starts at home. And in the middle of it all-Charlie, holding court as always, seamlessly directing any latecomers to the trays of champagne, the lines of coke, the fascinating people they'll later go home with.

For the past ten years, Laurel Canyon (and the winding roads off it) has been the center of everything. A hidden neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills filled with beautiful young things who just want to create and fuck-some of whom have gone on to become unfathomably famous, others who will remain the same age forever-and through it all, Charlie has been working his magic behind the scenes. As Lane watches him tonight, he raises an eyebrow and she nods, smiling back at him. It's only because of Charlie that Lane doesn't have to be Charlie.

Lane sinks against the bookcase, already thinking about bed, when she catches sight of an acquaintance of Scotty's, Dimitri (a ballet dancer with a lithe body and a mind like the stock exchange), pressing a young blond woman into the corner of the deck. The night is dark, the moon thin as Lane edges outside, her loose cream silk suit lifting in the June breeze. She slips into the shadows, unnoticed by either Dim or the young woman.

"It's not what I expected," the girl, shivering in a gold Lurex jumpsuit, says as she dips her head to do a thick line of coke off the wooden handrail. The sycamore trees rustle above, and, when she looks back up, she seems momentarily bewildered.

"What, did you think it would still be orgies and LSD?" Dim says, his voice unpleasant as ever. "Nothing stays the same. Not even here."

"I don't know," she says, either missing or ignoring the scorn in his voice, the way it invites her to ridicule herself further. "It all feels . . . maybe a little sad. Like when you stay too long at a carnival, and you see everyone packing up. It's a little like that."

Lane feels a dull sting of recognition. Dim takes a drag of his cigarette, about to say something else, when she clears her throat to avoid any further humiliation.

"Lane," he says, his voice suddenly warm and expansive, stretching her name until it gains an extra syllable. "My dear Lane. Please do illuminate yourself-I'd like for you to meet my terribly ill-mannered, unforgivably young friend."

Lane swallows her distaste and steps toward them, accepting the lighter Dim holds up for the cigarette in her mouth. The girl doesn't seem embarrassed yet, which comforts her. There is something about her, some blank openness that makes Lane want to tell her to run far from here.

"Nancy Dennis, all the way from Terlingua, Texas, meet the fabulous Lane Warren," he says, with a flourish, and Nancy smiles sheepishly.

"Fuck off, Dimitri," Lane says, waving her hand at Dim, shooing him inside. After a pause, he obliges, stepping away with a pointed look in the girl's direction that riles Lane up all over again.

"Nancy," Lane says, and Nancy nods, her fingertips wrapped around the wooden railing.

"Nancy," she says again, tapping her cigarette so that the fine ash falls to the ground. "Nancy Dennis."

Nancy widens her heavily lined eyes.

"Why exactly are you here?" Lane asks, not unkindly.

Nancy frowns, her mouth moving silently for a few moments while she works out whether the older woman is laying a trap for her. I'm asking if you're an explorer or an observer, Lane thinks as she takes another drag of her cigarette. I'm asking because one lasts a lot longer here than the other.

"I'm here because everyone I admire has been to one of your parties," Nancy says finally. "And I've been hearing about them for as long as I can remember. I guess I didn't want to . . . miss my chance."

Lane pauses, unsure now of what she can say to this person, who can't be a day over seventeen-twenty-one years Lane's junior. Perhaps Lane should explain that the reason Nancy is disappointed by this evening, perhaps by Los Angeles in general, is that everyone's already done anything worth doing here, and back then they did it out of a frenzied wonder, so consuming it felt like their soul was on fire, or because they were so fucking high they didn't know what they were doing, but never just because someone had done it before them.

Lane glances inside the house, the golden glow of the church candles lining the bookshelves, the cigarette smoke spiraling away from a crowd that gets both ever younger and ever more knowing as the years pass, at her valiant husband who is slowly coming down the stairs now, scanning the room for god knows what, and she thinks that, actually, this is the only reason any of them are here. They are here because their world was once so vivid, so beautiful, that they are all somehow willing to settle for a ghost version of it. And that's the problem with living in a place that shines so brightly-it has to fade sometime.

Nancy is still rigid, unblinking, bracing herself for what Lane is going to …