From Venice to Avalon by James Cass Rogers


BOOK REVIEW
by Carol Fondiller

Maybe I’m grumpy because I missed out on a free trip to Avalon, a tour of the Casino and grub. The invite for the promotion of the book came a day after the event.


Venice to Avalon was written by former Venice resident James Cass Rogers.

It’s a mystery combined with drugs and cosmic Woo-Woo and peopled with familiar Hollywood characters. The plot revolves around a woman who wants to become a costume designer and is hired by a famous but semi-retired designer named A Dorno who lives in an old mansion (echoes of "Sunset Boulevard") with kindly old retainers. He is chauffeured in a vintage automobile. He’s dressed the best.

The protagonist is regressed to a former life where she was an unsuccessful starlet in the late 30’s.

After witnessing the aftermath of a child rape by a dashing movie star, not being auditioned for "Gone With the Wind," the starlet gets bumped. Whacked. Murdered. Drowned.

The story zigs and zags from past to present. The protagonist is colorless. I did not care, nor was I curious about her destiny.

The Venice atmosphere of the 30’s was absent. It was as if the author cribbed the brief historical outline from the L.A. City Planning Commission. Ditto Avalon. Ditto Hollywood.

The novel seemed derivative, and the author did not have the taste to steal from the best. And there are some damned good books about Hollywood, and a few about Venice.

Nathaniel West’s "Day of the Locust" comes to mind. Written in the 30’s, it still resonates. Anything by Chandler that takes place in Bay City (pseudonym for Santa Monica). There’s a wonderful novella by Fritz Lieber. "The Black Gondolier." Hey, look I’m thinking off the top of my brain-injured head and can’t remember if it was Chandler or Dashiell Hammett who wrote so wonderfully about SoCal, but read ‘em both. And oh yes, Gore Vidal’s "Kolki" catches the flavor of SoCal also, as does is "Hollywood."

There’s one part where the book and the protagonist comes alive. That’s when she finds out she’s been ripped off by her mentor. It snaps and crackles then, but the rest of the book does not pop.

Posted: Sat - May 1, 2004 at 03:55 PM          

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