California is a big piece of my personal mythology. I always thought I would go there, maybe even live there, mostly as a kid, but here I am in New York and things are fine. Still, California will always be somewhere in my mind so even when living East, I can sometimes feel a pull to the West. Last fall I saw “The Hollywood Trilogy” as a big yellow and orange paperback in a Brooklyn store window and couldn’t help picking it up. I had a feeling it wasn’t a new book and in a sense it wasn’t, it wasn’t even a single book as it is a collection of novellas, so it did not reach a high place on the planned list at the Bro. I read the first two stories, put the book down, and came back to the third. Even though I read other things last fall and into this year, this collection was hanging around in the background.
I’ve read other California based books recently, some good (American Dream Machine, Matthew Specktor) some not so (This Book Will Save Your Life, A.M. Homes) and I am still on the look out for something surf /skate based (Think Lords of Dogtown in Lit, suggestions? Anybody?). I would say Hollywood is the best of the bunch. But really it stands alone and separate from the others. The three stories, A Couple of Comedians, the True Life Story of Jody McKeegan and Turnaround were written from 1975 to 1981 but the collection was rereleased last year. The author Don Carpenter died years ago. From the start I was feeling a connection to the old greats, Bukowski of course, but then on to Thompson and hell even Morrsion because this is California we’re talking about here, right? This was L.A. history, that hazy golden dream from my youth. I was meant to read this book just like I was meant to go out there. At least I hoped so.
The stories are accessible, they aren’t avant garde or artsy but still Don Carpenter is a writer’s writer, if such a thing exists, and his lengthy prose matches up more with poets and heavier “lit” writers than the average thriller. That’s not to say things don’t happen to the characters, and you care about them a lot, I found, but don’t expect explosions and twists. Their endings, which I will of course leave out, are not predictable and really are the main separation between Carpenter’s tales and something by the Beats or a Kesey. There is plenty of Hollywood sleaze in each but it’s all a footnote or background noise. The characters have heart and great, magnetic voices. You can read each book on their own for sure but all three together are worth the time.
Carpenter uses aging actors, movie producers and writers to frame his world, not so much starlets or superstars. The Hollywood he describes is one from the past so it’s easy to see a kind of classic, day buzzed glow around the stories. There is little if no tragic youth or crushed idealism in his golden West, but much more of the struggle of regular people putting in a lot of work to get by. They just happen to work in the movies and have an excess of sex and drugs available. Carpenter is separate once again from the poets in his lack of existential leanings but the drawn out toils of his characters are endearing. This connection to common life can be as deep as any gaze off into the sunset.
There is an exceptional amount of physical and emotional detail in each story so if you love words, you’ll be set. If you need something to blow up you might want to move on. If you grew up with Bukowski and Fante and all the other boys of drinking, screwing and the occasional poem fame but have put them down recently, Hollywood might be a nice way to keep in touch.
I’m not sure if I like one of the stories over the others. The last one, Turnaround, wove three characters with very different roots in and around each other’s lives and was done seamlessly so I liked that. The first, Comedians, had a great first person voice. And the middle story, Jody McKeegan, won’t be found on a screen anywhere. Naturally, I wanted to find something of myself in the pages. Specifically some tie to that idea I had of California. When I put the book down finally, or even when I picked it up again to start a new story, I was satisfied, comforted even by Carpenter’s sparing of few words, but I won’t say pulled back to imagining beaches and a Doors soundtrack and destiny and oh, ok I’ll stop there. I made a visit to an old dream but that’s all.
Two tasks came my way after finishing Hollywood, a quick study of Don Carpenter’s life story and a trip out West. No, not to L.A., but to San Francisco with some friends for New years.
The trip came first. I had never been to San Fran and found I loved it. I followed up on as much sixties culture that was dear to me as I could and left too soon. I didn’t think too much of my old L.A. ideas and tried not to compare the two. But, I found passages from the Hollywood Trilogy sticking around in my mind. I kept thinking damn, what a good book and got ready to kick the idea of a recap up to the Bro. Then I got home and read up on Carpenter. Despite acclaim from fellow writers he did not achieve major fame and his time in Los Angeles was spent screenwriting to pay the bills. He committed suicide in 1995. His last unfinished novel, also set in Hollywood, Fridays at Enrico’s, was completed by Johnathan Lethem and rereleased in 2014. So, that respect from other writers carries on.
Then after a few quick articles I found out that he first gained the admiration of his fellows in North Beach, the neighborhood I stayed in and loved in San Fran. He was a friend and contemporary of most of the greats his words brought back to my mind. Don Carpenter, the writer’s writer of North Beach. Dream alive. See you after the next one.
