*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Ryan in San Diego, Calif.! ***
A thing about Los Angeles: Even after you’ve lived in this metropolis for decades, there are areas that will remain entirely foreign to you — even while they feel vaguely familiar because you’ve driven through them a bunch of times. I can conjure up an image and aesthetic and stereotypes of many L.A. neighborhoods without having any real clear sense of what it might be like to live there.
Which is to say — If you’re curious about what it might be like to live in the valley, pick up Anne-Marie Kinney’s Coldwater Canyon. Of course, this novel describes one unique person’s experience of the valley — Shep, a former Midwesterner who landed in Los Angeles after serving in Desert Storm, who suffers from Gulf War syndrome and lives off his disability checks while hanging out with a buddy at a liquor store and stalking a girl he believes to be his daughter.
Sleepy strip malls with failing stores that serve as fronts for shadier businesses, wide and empty sidewalks punctuated by the occasional grocery cart-pushing denizen, some mute and benign, others loud and frightening. Coldwater Canyon takes you all over Los Angeles, really, from a line of actors signing up to serve as extras on TV shows, to a tiny theater hosting an experimental theater piece, to a well-secured studio lot, guards running around with headpieces.
The novel comes out from Civil Coping Mechanisms on October 4, 2018, and I’m giving away a galley copy of Coldwater Canyon to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.
For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, recommending your favorite exit off the 101 — or any other freeway. The giveaway closes September 30, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.
Come back later this month to read an interview with Anne-Marie Kinney.
Carpinteria. My friends lived there for several years, and it was always an absolute delight to drive from San Diego to see them. I also once saw Conan O’Brien eating brunch there.