The author’s third novel, L.A. Women, charts the stormy friendship between writers Lane Warren and Gala Margolis in 1960s Los Angeles.
What was your inspiration for writing about L.A. in the ’60s?
I was raised on the music of the ’60s and have always felt very connected to that era. I knew I would write about it, but I didn’t have the right story until I read about Carole King meeting Joni Mitchell, and Carole allegedly saying to Joni, “You don’t like yourself, I can tell. I like myself.” I thought about two women doing the same thing, but with very different personalities and skill sets and outlooks on everything, and wondered what a friendship and rivalry would look like between them.
What research did you do to make the period come alive?
I spent a lot of time just walking around the city. For instance, when I found Holloway Drive, in West Hollywood, I knew it would be the perfect location for Lane’s first apartment. Los Angeles has a unique ability to preserve its own history. You can see it in the amazing mid-century architecture and art deco buildings. You can also see it in the restaurants that are still there, like Musso & Frank or Dana Tana’s, where you can go and have an experience that is not too dissimilar from 60 years ago.
Did you make use of anyone’s personal recollections?
One person, Pat Warner, the wife of music historian Alan Warner, had lived in Hollywood since the late ’50s, and I had the amazing opportunity to spend a lot of time with her. She was in her late 80s. We would meet for lunch in one of the four or five restaurants near her home behind the Chateau Marmont and she would answer my questions and recall all these specific details. She told me that all the divorced dads used to take their kids to the horse ring at the Farmers Market on a Sunday and you could see them all going around. It was details like that that I thought really added to the sense of place. I don’t think the book would exist without her, to be honest, because our chats were so inspiring.
Are your two main characters meant to be stand-ins for Joan Didion and Eve Babitz?
I do think the actual trajectory of my characters’ lives is completely different to Eve Babitz’s and Joan Didion’s, although I suppose the idea of being chewed up and spat out by the city that raised you does have echoes of Babitz’s life—that is part of my character Gala’s story, too. I found writing about writing to be so much fun, and I could poke fun at myself a little bit through the character of Lane and all her quirks.
