Customer Reviews

The Slide Area (Midnight Classics)

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One of the blurbs on the back of this book (from the Times Literary Supplement)suggests that it "earns a place on anyone's shelves along with Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Last Tycoon' and Nathaniel West's 'The Day of the Locust.'" And it's tempting to make that comparison, considering the setting and the depiction of the characters found here.

"The Slide Area" is a more tender novel than "The Day of the Locust" but whose portraits are equally piercing. The book is divided into seven sections, and, taken on their own, stand as short stories to a larger collection; but I read the book as one novel. The narrator is a faceless and nameless script-writer who seems untouched by all that surrounds him. He is almost a neutral bystander to the proceedings he describes, in the way Nick is in "The Great Gatsby." Lambert describes the geography of Los Angeles, Hollywood and Pacific Palisades with a keen eye, catching all of the glorious detail of that area. The main character is drawn to the "Slide Area" of the book's title: the place, like the people, is in constant danger of crumbling and falling off into the ocean. The narrator struggles to keep his feet firm in this precarious terrain, as the people he does business with seem unable to keep their heads above water.

It's an ugly world Lambert depicts, but there is a heart at its center, and that is what I find so attractive about this novel. While the stories of what goes on behind the scenes of the film industry are told in frank and brutally honest ways, it's the heart at the center of this world that brought me pleasure. It's a sensitive story Lambert tells in these mini-stories. The pacing of the chapters is excellent. Just as I was sensing an end to one story, it would come to an end, the feeling of closure coming at just the right moment.

So, it is the same geography (both literally and figuratively) as "The Day of the Locust" but this book lacks the gruesome punch found in "Day." This is NOT a fault I have with the book; its tenderness endures long after one has finished it.

Neither THE DAY OF THE LOCUST or THE SLIDE AREA could be considered advertisements for the glories of living in L. A. or working in show business, but where LOCUST gives us paper-thin grotesques doing nasty things that their creator has told them to, Lambert's collection of interrelated short stories tell us about sad, believeable human beings who follow the promptings of their hearts and minds, which frequently aren't functioning as well as they should for their own good or the good of those around them. Sometimes they are a bit grotesque, but that never compromises their humanity or the reader's ablity to feel for them, and their author does them the double honor of quiet honesty and intelligent prose. He also has convinced me that if I ever leave Florida, it will be for Minnesota or Idaho or Delaware or anywhere but California . . .