Pretty Things

Booklist called Susan Compo “smart, sassy, and tough,” while Publishers Weekly praised her “witty, unflinching prose.” Following two highly regarded story collections, Susan Compo’s first novel takes a sharp-eyed look at LA's culture industry. Giselle Entwistle has her hands full with her roster of demanding show-business clients. There’s Adon, struggling to make the transition from teen idol to mature star with the aid of a goatee. There’s would-be rock impresario Hedda Hophead, “aggressive as junk mail and just as relentless.” There’s country singer Len Tingle, whose career has as many ups and downs as his love affair with Giselle; and Tupperware demonstrator extraordinaire Troy Harder, “a living legend in food storage,” who Giselle fears might want to plastic-wrap her. Not to mention child prodigy belter Frances Culligan, who seems to have disappeared. And then there’s Pandra, whose haunting memoir of growing up in suburban Orange County and coming of age in '70s glitter-era Los Angeles (platform boots, Rodney’s English Disco, The Real Don Steele Show, David Bowie clones) forms a book within this book. Giselle hopes to get Pandra’s story published, but it does bring up this little matter of a possible murder in Pandra’s past . . .