Los Angeles
The fragility of the modern city reflects humanity’s vulnerability
The more complex the infrastructure, the more liable it is to break down – as was recently apparent in the blackout that brought Madrid and Lisbon to a standstill in April
The pursuit of love letters: My Search for Warren Harding, by Robert Plunket, reviewed
Our magnificently monstrous anti-hero goes in quest of a cache of reputedly pornographic letters written by the former US president to his mistress
The unfulfilled life: Ask Me Again, by Clare Sestanovich, reviewed
Our aimless young heroine struggles to find herself in New York, Washington and Los Angeles – but even the novel’s inconclusiveness is compelling
Saint Joan and saucy Eve: a single woman split in two
The relationship between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz is memorably captured in Lily Anolik’s red-hot, propulsive portrait of two warring writers who were once close friends
Her weird name was the least of Moon Unit Zappa’s problems
Frank and Gail Zappa’s eldest child describes how the endless battles between her manipulative mother and misogynist father in the 1970s blight the family to this day
An insight into the American Dream: Table for Two, by Amor Towles, reviewed
Recent short stories and a novella all feature protagonists in pursuit of an ambition that puts them in varying degrees of peril
Eye-popping misogyny
There’s no doubt that Quentin Tarantino is a movie director of brilliance, if not genius. But can he write? Well…
Ode to LA
Lisa Taddeo’s debut Three Women was touted as groundbreaking. In reality it was a limp, occasionally overwritten account of the…
In Los Angeles, school’s out…forever?
Americans have mixed feelings about opening schools this fall. Some — like the Trump administration’s Department of Education — want…
Meow! Claws out for Mayor Pete at LA Democratic debate
It may be only the third time in American history the president has been impeached but it’s the first time…
In 2020, Trump must save the cities
This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. In 2014, America’s progressives got a wake-up call. That year,…
Washed-up in LA: This Storm, by James Ellroy, reviewed
When James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential appeared in 1990, it introduced us to a world of blatant corruption, casual racism and…
Philip Marlowe’s last case? Only to Sleep, by Lawrence Osborne, reviewed
Only to Sleep is the third Philip Marlowe novel written by someone other than Raymond Chandler and while the authors…
LA used to be fun – dope has just made it dull
Los Angeles stinks. Not just of the usual things: sex, money, suntan oil, hipster food, surfer wax — odours that…
Prince and me
The untold story
Downtown Los Angeles
There’s a certain kind of Englishman who falls hard for Los Angeles. Men such as Graham Nash, who swapped the…
A sex vampire on wheels
The title of this book tells you a lot. Jack Sutherland, who grew up in London and Los Angeles, worked…
LA runs riot
Ryan Gattis’s novel All Involved is set in South Central Los Angeles in 1992, during the riots that began after…
American beauty
It is true that, like wine, certain artists don’t travel. Richard Diebenkorn, subject of the spring exhibition in the Royal…
Diary
Every year Christmas comes earlier and earlier in America. Cards, baubles and imitation trees were being sold in the big…
Bradford bohemian
David Hockney talks to Martin Gayford about 60 years of ignoring art fashion
Back in the mean streets
Aficionados of detective fiction have long known that the differences between the soft- and hard-boiled school are so profound that,…
Diary
Ahh! Spring has sprung at last! Or has it? Leaving a warm and sunlit London last month we expected balmy…
Diary
For a minute I just stood there with my back against the wall, staring at the credit card receipt. Then…
