The latest in my series of publishing biography information for my fictional characters in The Forest Dark. Louis Ronald Reagan von Eiff White was probably the hardest persona for me as the writer to inhabit — a 24 year old, in 2009. He’s a mixed-race, heterosexual man-boy. Harder for me to write than a fifty-something woman (Eden von Eiff, his mother)? I think it was. At times anyway, though not always.
It’s funny, since those of us older than our 20s have lived through all that and much more, we think, “oh sure, I remember what it was like.” But the truth is we really don’t think the way we used to when we were younger, and it’s difficult to conjure up. There are those who seem to have an affinity for certain life periods (thinking of someone like the late filmmaker John Hughes, who had that knack to immediately dredge back high school, to fantastic effect).
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No really what does he look like? Well, I knew he came from a similar situation as this guy:
The Most Powerful Man in the World
But he was much younger and has a certain accoutrement (you’ll have to read the book) – but then I saw this commercial (which I thought was great, btw) and I realized that this is not far from what my intention was with Louie White – though Dante de Blasio is still a teenager:
So what do you need to know about Louis White? Well —
he’s proficient at surfing.
he has a best friend named Zeke
he has a girlfriend, Stephanie, who he met in high school
he has a slight inferiority complex – resulting from the rejection of his mother
he is the best kind of cool because he’s totally unaware of it
he’s actually talented in the same way that his mother is
he tweets, and has quite a following
he writes an award-winning blog at 24
never knew his father, but touts his Cuban heritage anyway
he has a ‘fro (not at all unlike Dante)
I think he’s somewhat passive/aggressive
he’s also charismatic and knows how to work it
he has no good adult role models but craves them; his closest relationship is with a crazy middle-aged white gay man
A pretty interesting and fun character for me to write. Certain folks have said I should base a series of books on him. Not sure about that but it’s intriguing. New review of Forest Dark here.
The initial inspiration for the character Eden von Eiff from The Forest Dark:
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
Amy Carter
Patti Davis
Chelsea Clinton
Eleanor Mondale
Political daughters who got famous when they were young, around college age, then their bright stars faded — usually because their parents did not win whatever election it was they got famous for in the first place — think Eleanor Mondale, perhaps, or even Maria Shriver (though she’s not the best example since she has always been in the public eye).
Better examples may be Nixon’s daughters Tricia and Julie, or Susan Ford, or Amy Carter. So you get the idea. I was kind of fascinated to think about what life was like beyond that one shining moment or moments.
Eden has tried to make some hay from her brief brush with fame in the media world, and she’s ended up as kind of a mediocre magazine writer. It helps that she has a famous name, and has an ever-decreasing monthly stipend left over from her mother’s family with some murky connection to the Dodges of Detroit auto fame. But it’s not much. In fact, the truth is, she is just as much a member of the 99% as you or me.
Some things about Eden von Eiff, from the lengthy bio I wrote for her (I do this with all main, and some secondary characters for my novels or scripts):
she’s blond, but as she gets older, the bottle gets lighter and more frequent
she claims she doesn’t like attention, but that’s a lie. She craves it and has a massive insecurity complex.
when she appears strong, she’s mostly acting “as if.”
she has a love/hate relationship with her father, and as much as she’d like to dismiss the relationship she has with her mother, it’s impossible to get away from it.
She’s an atheist, but would never admit it, telling people she’s Catholic.
She’s the same age as Madonna, and also from the Detroit area. Quite a coincidence, though they never knew each other.
von Eiff – German name, someone I went to grade school had it. Seemed to ring for her.
She wants money, likes money, but has no clue how to hold onto any once she does get it.
She’s desperate for love in her life, and wants to right things with her friends in California.
She lies a lot, though would deny it, which in itself is a . . . lie.
She hates the song “Rhapsody in Blue” because that was playing when Louie was conceived.
She thinks she may have a problem with gambling. It’s mostly the horses and the track, though casinos are also like catnip.
She likes comedy. Her favorite comedian is Denis Leary. In fact, she may have a secret thing for Denis.
To relieve some of the stress in her life, she attempted kayaking, but hated it, and almost drowned once. She keeps this to herself.
She has a cat, named Florence, who is staying with a neighbor in New York while she’s in Los Angeles in Part 2 of the book.
When she was a little girl, she dreamed of being . . . the governor of Michigan.
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Just happen to be in NYC this week, and thought I’d stroll over and snap a picture of the grand old entrance to the Apthorp apartments, where Eden von Eiff has a tiny but mortgage-free apartment in my novel “The Forest Dark.” I waited for awhile hoping reality might follow fiction but alas, there was no Eden egress! The first check is to ensure that the company buy levitra no prescription offering to supply the product employs the services of a qualified professional should be taken. Besides, it is also what makes relationships happy for men and viagra vs generic women both. Loss of mental capacity is the greatest method to obtain the quality item and you will also require a large amount of healthy support offered by food supplements (since most stores for viagra of us don’t get sufficient nutrition as a result of diet by yourself). Just a thought of suffering from the issue of sex health should rapidly get the treatment to enhance sperm sale on viagra count naturally. Join Amazon Prime – Watch Over 40,000 Movies
Photo: Track aficionados watching the horses pre-race, at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California.
In “The Forest Dark,” my novel coming out later this month (May 2013), my character Eden von Eiff (an heiress to a C-list political legacy) spends time at the historic track to forget about how eff’d up things are in her life, as well as to (hopefully) make a few bucks.
The front cover of my new family-of-choice novel, “The Forest Dark,” coming out sometime this May.
A significant chunk of the second part of the book takes place at night, and of course, the image conjures up the idea of an “urban forest.” I like that this photo even includes the relatively “new” Ritz-Carlton skyscraper at L.A. Live in DTLA.
Stay tuned for updates on book and ebook availability. What the heck is it about, you ask? The back cover copy states:
“In 1984, during L.A.’s frenetic Summer Olympics, conservative co-ed Eden von Eiff befriends young gay man Noah Baldock and his boyfriend, Ronnie. Though they become fast friends, Eden feels like an inconvenient third wheel until she meets Ruben Acosta. Little does she know that Noah has also cast his eye on the handsome Cuban. After the wild summer, Eden’s pregnant and struggling to keep this secret from her politically powerful family back east when Noah offers a solution to her problem.
Twenty-five years later, these two Boomers must come to grips with choices they made long ago. Eden’s son Louie is now a social media star with his ambitions set on reality TV. Noah struggles with job loss and his odd “friend” Jivan, who holds a mysterious power over him. Eden regrets not being part of Louie’s early life and wants to change that, but finds mothering a 25-year-old a daunting challenge.
Thinking their troubles have mostly to do with middle age, the wrecked economy and professional failure, both Eden and Noah find themselves tested in ways they could not have predicted. In the process, they discover what it is that’s essential, and what it is that lasts.”
Boomer angst, for sure, and hopefully, lots of irreverent fun along the way. I think this is a book you can even take along to the beach with you this summer – either in paper or electronic form.
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Here’s my first attempt at some (like, 100 words) teaser marketing copy for my new novel, The Forest Dark:
“The Forest Dark” is a quirky, family-of-choice drama about Eden and Noah, middle-aged friends who must find a way to reconcile their unresolved past with an unexpectedly strange present.
In 1984, conservative co-ed Eden von Eiff befriends young gay man Noah Baldock during L.A.’s frenetic Summer Olympic Games. Becoming fast and intimate, Noah offers Eden a solution to an enormous problem — which she can’t, in the end, accept.
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Twenty-five years later, these two boomers struggle to come to grips with the choices they made long ago. They must navigate not only a troubled economy and professional failure, but also control a looming and violent threat to their future.
So, the idea is to entice without giving the whole plot away. I wonder if it’s too vague? What does anyone think? Also, how weird does a story have to be called “quirky?” I don’t want anyone to think it’s about, for instance, anyone named Zooey.
FICTION: A bit more from the unedited novel-in-progress, The Forest Dark, making use of L.A. location Bourgeois Pig. Hear the traffic. See the arguing baby boomers. It could get ugly:
Noah and Eden sat outside at the Bourgeois Pig tables on Franklin Avenue so she could smoke.
Since she was buying, Eden figured Noah would put up with the traffic noise. He could have ordered anything, but Noah was Noah: a simple coffee, black, with an extra shot of espresso.
He looked around as if it were unfamiliar territory. She assumed he really hadn’t treated himself much, at least in recent years when things had been so tough with money.
“Whenever I’m down here I always try to figure out who the Scientologists are,” he said, looking down the block at several pedestrians.
Eden still fumed inside about Barbara, about Zeke, about Warren fucking Medina and his Louie request.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s their church right across here. I think all these businesses are really shadow corporations of theirs for money laundering and other activities.”
She hadn’t noticed the sign until then: Scientology Celebrity Centre. Maybe he was right. After all, he’s the one who’s lived here the whole time, not her.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked. Continue reading →
Hey folks, just playing around again with the Mac (last time it was iMovie for the Cohen Hallelujah on the piano, to which I totally forgot about costume design, among other things…).
So today it was the podcast capabilities of Garage Band. I elected to do just the audio version, though it’s capable of doing video podcasts as well – as soon as I get a haircut.
I’m reading the opening of the second part of the The Forest Dark, when heroine Eden von Eiff goes back to Los Angeles to face up to some of the wreckage of her past.
Hope you enjoy. The podcast is about two minutes and some change.
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OK folks, it’s Friday, my brain is fried or dead or something. Maybe it’s the weather. The politicians have temporarily exhausted me and I’ve already voted. Remember, D is for forward, R is for backward. Good thing to remember on November 2.
Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles
In the meantime, here’s more from the novel I’m writing, The Forest Dark. Love L.A.’s Biltmore Hotel, so I set a bunch of scenes there. Here’s one. It’s July, 1984…
Senator von Eiff had called KCET and left a message that Eden should meet him downtown, at the Gallery Bar in the Biltmore Hotel. Eden thought it odd, if not ominous, that he hadn’t asked to speak directly to her since she was present when he called.
This is certainly a wonderful day, and it’s about to get better.
She took the Sunset Boulevard RTD downtown. Normally, she would’ve asked Noah for a ride but he was finally home, and sleeping, which is just what he should be doing, she thought.
Ronnie and he thought it funny that she didn’t drive. Eden had taken the bus all her life and didn’t see what the point would be in learning a skill she wouldn’t need again when back on the east coast.
From the outside, the Gallery Bar at the Biltmore emitted a golden glow, as if those entering had gone to heaven. Or, if her father was in there, maybe it was the fires of hell.
Rhino stood in the doorway wearing the usual black suit, his meaty arms folded tight over his chest.
“Where were you the other day?” Eden asked. “I waited in the gate at the Coliseum just like I was told to, just like a good little girl.”
His rings reflected the light from the chandelier above, making her blink. “The senator is waiting,” he said, cocking his head toward the bar’s interior. “Go on.”
Creep.
Eden could see her father sitting in a dark brown club chair at the far end of the room, facing her, his head framed by an enormous arched mirror, like a halo.
* * *
“I’ve already ordered you some cold California chardonnay, from a Santa Ynez Valley winery, a place called Bridlewood,” Henry said to her as she approached. A surprisingly hip charcoal sport jacket complimented his perfectly combed silver hair.
“Thanks, Daddy. It’s been a long day, I’m thirsty.”
He patted the arm of an ancient leather sofa next to him. “Did you park in the hotel garage?”
She sat and glanced around. Unfortunately, cocktail hour denizens either hadn’t shown up yet or had gone elsewhere. Perhaps everyone was so engrossed in the Games they didn’t have time to drink. She counted one elderly couple wrapped up in conversation across the polished wood floor.
“No – I took the bus,” she said. “It’s really easy from the studio and you know I don’t have a license.”
The server, a young woman – so short Eden thought at first she was a child wearing blue eye shadow – put the wine and what looked like a Gibson martini in front of her father, then soundlessly left.
“Are we still in that place?” he said, holding up his drink, inspecting the cocktail onion inside the glass, “that obnoxious place where you want to be treated like a child, instead of the daughter we raised you to be, who – and like it or not – is a young ambassador for our state?”
“Oh, Daddy – ”
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Eden now wished Rhino had come in with her.
“Cars, Dad, we make cars in Michigan.”
“We make cars! Exactly! I would have preferred for you to tell me you’d leased something like a Caddy, a nice cream Coupe de Ville or one of the big Fords, and parked it out front.” He took a tiny sip of the martini. “Instead, you tell me you took the goddamn bus.”
Eden’s head was going to explode.
She gulped down the chardonnay, which wasn’t in a very big glass anyway, and caught the eye of the tiny waitress, who was watching them from the bar.
“Yes, all right, you can have another. Yes, of course, I’ll pay for it,” he said. “You may need several, as I want to now hear the story of why you could not sit with your mother and your sister at the Olympics.”
Usually it’s not this unpleasant, she thought. Her father did have that great sense of humor. She’d even read once in The New York Times that Democrats thought he “was witty.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Eden started. “I ran into a friend – actually, he was a friend of both mine and Noah’s, the guy you met – and we got to talking and seeing some of the backstage production stuff, you would not believe – ”
“No excuses, Eden. You’ve ignored us for the good part of a week now and your sister is here to specifically see you.”
“But I was working! I’ve been doing this internship you love so much, practically all day and all night!” Eden noticed that the old couple across the room was not conversing with each other anymore, but rather being entertained by the von Eiff family.
She was being too loud.
Henry von Eiff often had that effect on her.
“An internship I can end with a quick phone call,” he said. “And this hanging around with homosexual boys, I really don’t think that’s a good idea, is it honey? We brought you up better than that.”
The waitress was back with another glass of wine for Eden. “Are you finished, dear?” she said, putting the fresh one on the low cocktail table.
She nodded to the woman, but could feel herself begin to shake. This is just what he wanted and she would not lose it in front of him, in front of these strangers.
“They are my friends, Daddy. What would you know about it anyway?”
“Henry? I thought you said the two of you would be coming up to the suite for cocktails.”
Eden wasn’t usually overjoyed to see her mother, but right now was an exception.
Just like she owned the place, Madelyn von Eiff walked across the bar toward them. The way she held her cigarette out, from a distance a person might think she was a skinny transvestite doing a Bette Davis impersonation, just like one Eden had seen in a video at Revolver.
Her dress was powder blue and perfectly matched her shoes. Her blond hair with its streaks of gray was so precisely flipped and hard she could’ve used it as a weapon if she needed to. Behind her was Barbara was almost an afterthought, like a period.
That’s it for now, a work still in progress… have a great weekend everybody!
Not far from KCET in the steep hills above Los Feliz Boulevard, there was an abandoned house where a bizarre murder-suicide had taken place 25 years earlier. In 1959, middle-aged dentist Harold Perelson killed his 42-year-old wife Lillian with a ball-peen hammer, then drank a glass of acid to finish himself off.
The house was on a great slice of land with an even greater view of the Los Angeles basin and, on clear days, Catalina Island. For one reason or another, no one had lived in the house since the murder and it intrigued Sandy Torkelson no end.
“Go up there and do a piece on this place,” he told Noah. “Work up that haunted house thing, we’ll save it for Halloween. Can Eden dress up like that Elvira woman from Channel 9?”
She could and she did. Eden told Noah she was grateful for an assignment like this, as with the waning days of summer Olympics-related stories were few and she was sure Sandy was marking his calendar to the date when she would no longer be his intern.
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Anyway, they’d found that the Perelson yard was like a corner of an abandoned park and hiked up there a couple of times afterward just for fun. Today they’d have a picnic, just the two of them.
Without regular waterings, the grounds had reverted back to their mostly indigenous plants and encroaching chaparral, with the occasional rosemary bush and eucalyptus tree providing agreeable scents and from the latter, shade.
A couple of heavy, cracked stone benches were still there. The Herculean effort it would take to steal them was probably just not worth it to most people. Noah and Eden sat on one, and spread their lunch out on the other.
“Egg salad or … tuna? I guess that’s what this is,” he said….
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