L.A. Women

Berman (The Comeback) evokes Eve Babitz, Joan Didion, and the glamour of the 1960s California literary scene in this exciting tale of a friendship and its dissolution. Magazine writer Lane Warren, who brings to mind Didion, moves from New York City to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s to work on her first novel. At a party, she meets the Babitz-like Gala Margolis, an aspiring writer who leads a free-spirited and sexually adventurous life in Laurel Canyon. Lane and Gala keep bumping into one another at parties and eventually become friends of a sort. After Lane’s first novel hits the bestseller list, she encourages Gala to take her writing more seriously. Eventually, Gala gets hired to write a monthly column for Vogue. Later, the friendship turns sour, their breakup fueled by petty jealousies and mutual sabotage, which Berman gradually reveals in a parallel narrative set in 1975, when Lane is working on a thinly disguised novel about her former friend until she learns Gala has disappeared. Berman casts Lane and Gala as vivacious frenemies, and their fights generate real sparks. Readers will surely fall for these two ladies of the canyon. Agent: David Forrer, InkWell Management. (Aug.)