Bender's L.A. - by Michael Elias (Paperback)

About the Book

A new novel by the co-author of The Jerk.

Book Synopsis

In the coke-dusted canyons and deal-making rooms of 1970s Los Angeles, Bender's L.A. follows writer David Bender as he sets out to remake his life - romantically, professionally, and spiritually - after his wife walks out in Puerto Vallarta with a single sentence and a suitcase.

While the Vietnam War casts its shadow, Bender runs afoul of Nixon's FBI, plays tennis with fugitive Abbie Hoffman, arms himself against a homicidal producer, and goes back in time to fall in love with a young Marilyn Monroe. Bender weaves through a world of players, radicals, writers and artists including a woman suspiciously like Eve Babitz.

Haunted by his New York past and guided by his Sun Tzu-quoting agent Neil Navitz, Bender begins to wonder whether success has cost him the things that mattered - or whether he ever truly possessed them.

With a comic edge, Elias offers a bitter-sweet meditation on love, memory, and the moral compromise of the Hollywood illusion machine and the misfits it often mangles along the way. In this tragicomedy of nostalgia and recovery, Bender prevails.

"I loved this book." - Steve Martin

"Brisk, dishy, and often laugh-out-loud funny, this sharply honed novel steeps readers in the everyday life of the cocaine-powered Hollywood 1970s and '80s." - BookLife Editor's Pick

Review Quotes

"Michael Elias writes with humor and precision. Bender is a deeply memorable Hollywood character. I loved this book." - Steve Martin

"In the last few years, Michael Elias has become one of my favorite writers. And Bender's L.A. is, as far as I'm concerned, the best work he has ever done. I was in heaven reading it." - Lili Anolik, author of Didon and Babitz

"Elias mixes Bender's politics as he experiences Hollywood in a tumultuous decade of war and revolution, with his hero's constant self-reflection and analysis. And that Hollywood is never far from any moment internal or external in Bender's life makes it all even more interesting - doubles it up, folds it over - as every story is a story and yet could also be a story about a story about a story. I love it all." - Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane

"It's a great read - an elegy for lost loves and lost cities, and a love letter to L.A. Cynical, social satire and emotional truth. Eve Babitz meets Raymond Chandler." - Patrick McGilligan, author of Young Orson

"There is a seductive matter-of-fact quality to this novel that combines with a liquid clarity. With these people there is no doubt you know your onions. - Phillip Davison, author of The Crooked Man

"This has the wry humor of Scott Fitzgerald's Pat Hobby stories, refracted through the cracked lens of L.A. Confidential. Sublime." - John Baxter, author of A Year in Paris