L. A. Women

By Ella Berman

What it’s about?

After a steady descent from literary stardom, Lane Warren is back. She’s secured a new book deal based off the life of her sometimes friend and more often rival, notorious free spirit and muse, Gala Margolis. Lane’s only problem is that Gala has been missing for months…nobody can find her.

Ten years earlier, Gala was a charming socialite and Lane was a Hollywood outsider amidst the glittering 1960’s LA party scene. Though never best friends, Lane found Gala sharp and compelling. Gala liked that Lane took her seriously. They were both writers. They were drawn to each other.

That is until Gala’s star began to rise, and Lane grew more envious. Then Lane decided to do something that she wouldn’t ever be able to take back…changing the trajectory of both their lives.

What I think:

I was so immersed in this story from the very beginning.

Lane is a talented young writer who has had glittering success in New York and heads to L.A. to write her novel. At a party she has a brief encounter with Gala, a  party girl, socialite with talents of her own. Lane who is quiet and introspective, is drawn to Gala’s enigmatic and glittering personality from their first encounter.

The book begins 10 years later. Lane is searching for the success of her earlier career and decides to write a book based on Gala.

The timelines shift between the present and the past. In the present, Gala is missing and Lane is becoming increasingly erratic in her search to find her. Lane is also coping with motherhood, marriage and her writing. In the past, the scenes of their careers and relationships piece together a picture of two complex and brilliant women.

This book is so atmospheric. It was Daisy Jones-like in its ability to transport me to L.A. in the late 1960s and 70s. The parties at Laurel Canyon are described to make you feel the juxtaposition between the hedonistic fun and despair and loneliness.

Lane is such a complex character. People are drawn to enigmatic personality and sharp wit, but she is deeply insecure about her writing. After her initial success, she has struggled to receive similar critical acclaim. Her complex relationship with her own childhood is having a profound effect on her own experience of motherhood. Having fought to find her place in the literary world, she finds the domestic sphere stiffling.

Gala has also had to create her own space and reputation where she is not reduced to a groupie, a fading It-girl who is dismissed as irrelevant. The competition between them is both a driving force and a destructive one.

Neither Lane or Gala are traditional likeable characters. They feel deeply, are introspective and often selfish. Nevertheless, they make compelling reading, and the cinematic quality of the writing leaves you thinking about them and their lives long after the last page.

Thank you to NetGalley for my gifted digital copy of L. A. Women.