The Divide by Morgan Richter

 

This has a lot in common with David Gordon's *Behind Sunset*, both being about people on the fringes of some part of what people think of as "Hollywood" digging into things, but this is much less on the lines of a period piece, and though it doesn't involve sex work as such it manages to be if anything grimier--this is not a novel that looks at the movie biz through any kind of rose-colored glasses, not even a little, and most of the people in it, even the Hollywood-successful ones, come off as grasping and as sort of clean skins wrapped around streaks of dirt. This is also, at least toward the end, an altogether weird novel, in ways I'm surprised any relatively major publisher (or imprint thereof) went with. The authorial voice crackles and sparkles with wit, the characters are amazingly distinct from each other, the LA it depicts is suitably rundown and kinda hollow. Has interesting things to say about the intersections and interactions and tensions between commerce and art, in ways that reflect both older Gen X-ish attitudes and more current ones. This is a really, really good novel, I hope Ms. Richter writes many more.