Anne R Allen

Lady of the Lakewood Diner is a coming-of-age story in the manner of Carson McCullers’s Member of the Wedding or Ella Leffland’s Rumors of Peace — but with one essential difference. In the case of both Ms. McCullers’s and Ms. Leffland’s female protagonists (Frankie Addams and Suse Hansen respectively), the turmoil is primarily internal—and ends shortly after each girl “comes of age.” In the case of Ms. Allen’s female protagonist, Morgan Boxer, the turmoil is as much show more external as internal—and continues well into adulthood.

The opening chapters are classic soap opera stuff. Setting? You guessed it: Los Angeles. Morgan Boxer is now Morgan le Fey (previously of Camelot fame and sister of King Arthur; alias Marvel Comic super-villain, but now just Morgan’s stage name). But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Within short order, we’re returned to New England (specifically, Avalon, Maine) and to Morgan as a young girl — and this is when things begin to get really interesting. A word of warning, however: you’ll have to have a strong stomach for what befalls our heroine in the coming months, years and chapters. If you’re a Boomer, all of this might sound piously familiar; if not, grab a seatbelt. Most Gen Xers and Millennials, I suspect, will think this story might’ve been material more befitting the “Alien” series of movies.

But no. It’s what happened — to millions of middle-class American kids.

Back then, if you were poor, you immediately picked up a trade or a tool and went to work to put bread on the table/keep a roof overhead. If you were rich, you summered on Capri, in Palm Beach, or on Block Island — or at least spent afternoons sailing off Newport or Nantucket. If you were middle-class, however, you could be relatively certain of a bed and breakfast — somewhere, somehow — and might allow yourself to experiment with life. Those experiments often turned out to be near-sighted disasters.

But the status of at least ‘middle-class’ was key. ‘Middle-class’ gave you the comfort zone, from infancy on, of believing you could risk everything for the sake of your pursuit — usually an artistic one — and you went for it. Was there an abundance of simple hangers-on among the Boomers, even at Woodstock? Yes, of course! Not everyone could be an original. But you thought you could — and so, you risked it.

Was there anything else really radically different about the Boomer generation? Well, maybe … sex. It came out of that closet marked ‘Puritan’ in the sixties. It had been there all along, even if in the closet … after all, we were called ‘Boomers’ because there were so many of us. And you don’t get many without making a plenty of whoopee!

What hasn’t changed in all of these generations? Babies. They still bring out the sparkle — then follow up a few years later with a crumple.

In any case, none of this is really of any consequence. What is of consequence is Ms. Allen’s story. And if you’re looking for a quickened heartbeat, this is a story for you. It never sags. If anything, it roller-coasts.

At one point about 5/6 of the way through this first novel in Ms. Allen’s trilogy, we return to la-la land — and the “set” seems to me to have more characters on stage than a Cecil B. DeMille epic, not to mention a different POV. But maybe that’s just me getting lost in all of the alcohol, hash, guns and robbers.

For the Epilogue, we then revert to Avalon. And it’s here that the character ‘Cal’ sums it up best at Location 4420 (in the Kindle edition): “(o)ur generation has such a compulsion to mythologize ourselves. I guess because we were the first generation to become a TV advertiser’s ‘demographic.’ Madison Avenue got us hooked — on Mickey Mouse, rock and roll, cigarettes and our own narcissism.”

Sic transit gloria mundi.

RRB
10/10/14
Brooklyn, NY show less

This was a reasonably fun escapist read. A manners columnist on the down-swing goes as a speaker to a writer's conference in Santa Ynez where quite a lot of mayhem ensues. (There's a little side-trip to Solvang, which you should go ahead and look up if you've never been there. I'll wait.)

This is one of those books with a largish cast of off-beat characters participating in zany events that leave one's head spinning, trying to figure who's really done what and why.

The style of writing is show more solid and flows well. Totally not the author's first rodeo. show less

Firstly, this is not my kind of book. Described by some as Chick-Lit-Noir, I never thought I’d find myself reading Chick-Lit, but I promised someone I would read it. I have no idea how many stars to give this book, so it will remain star-less. The review will have to suffice.

Camilla Randall is certainly down on her luck. Recently arrived in San Francisco in search of a job, her belongings in NY have been stolen from storage by a crooked doorman after her apartment was foreclosed on, she show more has no money, a perverted Englishman interrupted her dumpster diving while looking for bottles to recycle for a bottle of milk, a coyote has been chewing on her good shoes, and to top things off she discovered the footless body of the local sex toy emporium, “Lance,” where she had hoped to get a job.

Getting an offer of an advance and publication of her new Miss Manners book, Camilla manages to get to England where nothing is as it was supposed to be and events just seem to get worse. For a while I suspected the book to be an anti-publisher screed, but I have probably over analyzed. She’s ensconced in an old factory with several anti-social reprobates. She has no money and can’t find a place to sleep so she beds down behind some cardboard walls in the factory. When invited to sleep with Rosalee and Colin at their secret rendezvous cottage, Colin attacks her in the middle of the night as Rosalee is “in that time of the month” and he doesn’t want to waste the little “blue pills.”

The plot then descends into the more improbable, mixing in a bunch of characters I never really got a sense for, and Camilla often comes across as truly clueless. Nevertheless, the writing is fine and the book does have momentum, so I guess I would have to say that I often kept reading just to see what madcap adventure evolved next, although the perpetrator was a bit obvious by the last third of the book. There are some mildly amusing quips about publishing and Robin Hood. If you are looking for a very light read that would remind you of the silly movies of the fifties, it might be just the book for you. show less

What a surprising book this turned out to be! At first I thought I was going to be subjected to a book full of a sheltered spoiled brat... but NO! plot twist. And then I thought there would be a particular romance but NO! I was wrong. And I thought the protagonist was utterly helpless and hopeless but... you get the idea. Very fun to read, quite a page turner, but Warning: this isn't a mystery novel. There's no particular mystery other than how the heroine will manage to get control of her life.