The Writer's Life 4/2 - Three Writers

Author Michael Lee West, a female, grew up in the deep south. She has written eight novels and one food memoir. I just finished Mermaids in the Basement, her sixth work of fiction, published in 2008. It is the story of a young screenwriter who falls into a funk after seeing a front page story in The National Enquirer about an alleged affair between her Scottish director wunderkind boyfriend and his current female lead, who are shooting in the UK. She flees to her grandmother's home in coastal Alabama, where family secrets, many of them sordid, are gradually revealed. For a long stretch the story is told through her first person account. It then alternates between the viewpoints of several of the other characters as well as her own. It is a life-is-messy tale of dysfunction with a light touch. It is the second novel I've read recently that has a female screenwriter at its center. The other, Between Pictures by Jayne Loader, is far darker, the protagonist on a jag that includes drugs and promiscuity, miles from romance fiction. In Mermaids..., the characters opt for wine and food. The title refers to trinkets literally, family secrets metaphorically. I grew impatient but stuck with it to the finish. It ended exactly as I'd expected. The writing is solid, as is the character development. I think its appeal is restricted to fans of romance, particularly female. 55 users at Amazon have rated Mermaids in the Basement, forging to a consensus of 3.6 on a scale of five. I rate it 2.5. It's just not my cup of tea.

RIP Steven Bocho, 74, who succumbed to leukemia. Born in NYC, he was a TV stalwart for decades, a prolific force writing for shows such as Columbo, then creating many others. He experienced a lot of highs, several near misses, and a few disappointments, the most notable Cop Rock, a musical series savaged by most critics, canceled after just eleven episodes. His successes were spectacular, entertaining millions: Hill Street Blues ran for 141 epsisodes, L.A. Law 171, NYPB Blue 261, and Doogie Howser, M.D. 97. To my surprise, he wrote only one novel, Death by Hollywood. Of course, he published a memoir, Truth Is a Total Defense: My Fifty Years in Television. He won ten Emmys. The actors and writers who worked the shows he created won a boatload. Well done, sir. Thank you.

Another TV stalwart, Michael Imperioli, has written his first novel, The Perfume Burned His Eyes. He is not a novice, having written five episodes of The Sopranos, as well as two screenplays, including Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, which I believe was adapted from my first novel, Close to the Edge. It made the rounds while in the hands of a small press publisher married at the time to avant garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, even making it to Al Pacino, I was told. Since the movie is significantly different from my work, I never made inquiries, especially since I hated Summer.... If people react to my novel the way I did to that film, I failed miserably.

It stopped snowing in the late morning. Since the forecast calls for rain the next two days, I decided to open the floating book shop. My thanks to the mom who bought several pictorials and a young adult novel for her eight-year-old son, and James Patterson's Along Came a Spider for herself. Thanks also to the gentleman who purchased four CD's, among them a Duran Duran compilation. Here's how the old Hyundai looked before departure:

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