Writer Madeline Cash discusses her debut novel 'Lost Lambs,' which involves a port harbor like San Pedro. We also catch up with Secret Headquarters in Silver Lake.
Madeline Cash's debut novel 'Lost Lambs' is a beautifully calibrated high-wire act, a big-hearted family drama with a mystery plot nestled within. The Flynns are, to all outward appearances, a securely middle-class clan situated in some unspecified suburb.
But parents Bud and Catherine have decided to consciously uncouple, leaving their three daughters, each of them the creators of their own private realms, trying to find purchase amid a benumbingly conventional and uncomprehending world. 'Lost Lambs' is enchanting, poignant, and often very funny, the product of a strikingly original new voice in American fiction. I talked to Cash, an L.A. native who presently lives in London, about fathers, San Pedro and iPhones. 'Lost Lambs' is about this family of radically individuated characters, especially the three sisters Abigail, Louise and Harper. What compelled you to write about a family? I wanted to write a great American novel written by a woman, and I looked at these family systems novels, like 'The Corrections,' and going back further, 'Underworld,' then 'Gravity's Rainbow,' which was interesting to me as a family system novel that's a metaphor for our political and societal system as a whole. Then the mystery element of the book developed later. Your book made me think of John Irving’s early work, like “The World According to Garp.” Oh, that’s great! I’d love to sell as many books as John Irving! Bud is the patriarch in your novel — well, I suppose we can't really call him that. He's more like a well-intentioned yet ineffectual dad. I didn't have a paternal figure in my life, so this sort of sad, middling man has appeared in my writing for a long time. I just have so much sympathy for someone who doesn't strive for anything and just wants to live. And the women around him want more, and he's exhausted by it. Bud and his wife, Catherine, decide to open up their marriage, and it doesn't work out so well. I'm personally a fan of monogamy. To try to open up your relationship seems disastrous. Partners panic, and then they feel like they need to look for something else, but those butterflies you felt at the beginning of the relationship have to stop flapping at some point. And then, what you actually have is compatibility and partnership in common. My point is, there is no American dream. Life is never going to look like how you think, but it can still be lovely in all its messiness. Your mystery subplot involves an impossibly rich mogul who controls a nameless port harbor, but given you grew up in L.A., were you thinking about San Pedro? My estranged father lives in Palos Verdes, and I used to go to San Pedro a lot as a teenager. Like climb on the shipping containers and smoke weed, and just be a rebellious kid. I also mined their website about the supply chain. I was also thinking about when the Suez Canal was blocked, this one passageway, which tied up the global supply chain. It became interesting fodder for a mystery. I'm a big fan of mysteries, especially the sort of bumbling, irreverent criminal you find in a Guy Ritchie movie. One appealing feature of your book is that, even though it is set in the present, people aren't constantly texting each other. There's very little internet. I took great pains not to mention technology, almost to an unrealistic extent. I don't like to read about people being on their phones. That being said, I feel like I have a strangely healthy relationship with my phone. I like my music, I like using the map. I would have to carry a giant bag if I had to carry a flashlight, an encyclopedia, all my music and a compass all the time! On the centennial of Marilyn Monroe's birth, Valorie Castellanos Clark checks in on two books that celebrate the legend. While she finds James Patterson and Imogen Edward-Jones' 'The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe' to be plotless and somewhat pointless, she is taken with Lynn Cullen's novel 'When We Were Brilliant,' which focuses on Monroe's relationship with photographer Eve Arnold, calling it a moving 'homage to female friendship and ambition.' Jennette McCurdy's memoir, 'I'm Glad My Mom Died,' was a breakout bestseller. Now, the erstwhile child star has written her first novel, 'Half His Age,' which explores the romantic relationship between a young woman and a much older man. “I’m never writing something that’s intentionally provocative, and I’m certainly never writing anything for shock value,” McCurdy tells Ashley Spencer. “I really try to write for truth, and I can’t help it if that’s shocking.' Mark Athitakis weighs in on Gabriel Tallent's new novel, “Crux,' about two rock climbers and their struggles to find their place in the world. 'In this novel,' writes Athitakis, 'the tension, smartly and lyrically rendered, is at once wide as the horizon — how do we survive in this country? — and narrow as the slightest of nearly invisible footholds its characters require to get even a little bit ahead.' Finally, Mark Z. Barabak shares the strange tale of reporter Jon Ralston and the late Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, two fierce adversaries who wound up collaborating on Ralston's biography of Reid, 'The Game Changer.' At a time when it seems as if pop culture has abandoned print media, Silver Lake's Secret Headquarters sells comics and graphic novels to a loyal clientele that still believes in the narrative power of comic art. Now entering its third decade, the inviting space on Sunset Boulevard has become a trusted source for the very best titles, thanks to the keen curatorial eye of co-owners Dave Pifer and David Ritchie. I caught up with Pifer last week to find out what is selling in his store . What's selling right now? There's a series called 'Hobtown Mystery Stories' that we are big fans of, which are written by Kris Bertin. It's kind of like if Nancy Drew was in 'Twin Peaks.' That's a big one for us. There's a woman named Linnea Sterte who wrote 'A Garden of Spheres.' She's a young and celebrated cartoonist, her books are absolutely incredible. Sammy Harkham, who's a local, has started a new chapter of his anthology called 'Crickets' that customers are very much interested in reading. I suppose the serial nature of these stories compels customers to keep coming in to buy the next volume. Not every book is a series. Lots of time people come in for a one-and-done novel, but most of the time people are interested in continuing a long-form story. How is business? With the state of the union, and with the state of production gigs in L.A. right now, that has slowed down business for us. There's also been a shake-up with distributors that has squeezed the market. But on the bright side, I consider this to be a golden age as far as what authors are doing these days. There are so many incredibly talented writers and artists right now. Also, children's books are booming; an author like Raina Telgemeier gets a print run of a million copies for her books. Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles is located at 3137 Glendale Blvd.
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