These books are a pip! (click on the red letters to buy…) A perfect holiday gift for your favorite fan of old Hollywood. Excerpt below:
The Garden of Allah novels during Hollywood’s golden years.
The Garden on Sunset
by Martin Turnbull
GARDEN OF ALLAH HOTEL
8152 Sunset Boulevard
Marcus set his suitcase down in the dust and stared at the gold letters of Allah. He didn’t expect Sunset Boulevard to be a dirt track and he certainly didn’t expect to find a hotel sign out front of Alla Nazimova’s movie star mansion.
He peered at the hotel past the sign. It was painted the same cream as the garden wall, with tall, arched windows with dark brown shutters. It looked like the California missions he’d studied in high school.
He pulled out a handkerchief and swiped his broad forehead, round cheeks and the back of his neck. It was hard to believe this was January. Back home, they’d be shoveling the driveway, but here there wasn’t even a cool breeze. He picked up his suitcase and made his way past a long bed of pale roses and into the white hotel.
The murky foyer had paneled walls and octagonal avocado-green tiles the size of dinner plates. The reception desk would have been hard to spot without the lamp casting a pool of amber light on it. Its stained-glass shade was a kitschy pyramid with a sphinx and a clump of palm trees. There was no one in sight.
Marcus rang the bell. Laughter and clinking glasses wafted through the double doors that opened onto a wide brick path to a swimming pool curved like a grand piano at the far end. A crowd too large to count was scattered around it in knots of fours and fives; a hundred, two hundred people, maybe. Shiny tuxedos, sparkling diamonds, ropes of pearls, patent leather shoes.
Marcus gaped at a clutch of women dancing the Black Bottom. Their short hair, high hemlines and cigarettes were a far cry from the Pennsylvania Dutch girls he’d grown up with. A girl Marcus had known in McKeesport had turned up at a St. Stephen’s tea dance social with her hair bobbed like Louise Brooks and her stockings rolled down below her knees; she hadn’t lasted ten minutes, and Marcus had never seen her again. Maybe she’d been run out of town too.
Oooh. More please, if you would be so kind, Mr. Turnbull. And Ms. V it would be lovely to have a link as to where to buy…? Mille mercis…
Hello Love! Click on the red letters and it will take you to Martin’s site 😉 .
Oh boy! I loved this little tidbit!
You know when I was 19 I used to stand on Sunset at night at the sidewalk where the Garden of Allah once was and entertain lamented dreams of what was gone forever on that spot.
Lanier, Lanier, Lanier…if I were in wealthier states I swear that I would book a ticket to lovely SF just to listen to your stories for a day…
And If I were rich I would fly to Arles and tell them to you in person. All the while finding new stories there to tell back here.
The nicest building on the block now is the Chateau Marmont – where will go have tea with Gloria next time you come to visit!
I would LOVE that!
Do you have a story for me? Heck, I’m just heading over anyway — right this second!
Yes two!!
“These books are a pip!” Have I ever told you I love the way you express yourself, Madame V?! Ain’t I the Sultan of Smarm?! 😉
And you have a marvellous passel of commentators, too! Heather, Lanier, Dandy, Luanne, Lisa, Eduardo, et al. You cast a magic spell.
You are too kind, and I forgot about “pip”… Is that as archaic as “cheerio”? It is a nice bunch at Beguiling!
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