In 1970s-era Los Angeles, something was in the air. Much of that was smog, but there were other atmospheric troubles in those days of Me-Decade malaise.
Call it a feeling of uneasiness, a sense that the overripe paradise of Southern California had gone off. Author Gavin Lambert captures some of that dread – as well as L.A.’s toxic air – in his 1971 novel, “The Goodby People.” (Yes, he spelled it “Goodby,” which, like some of the book’s characters, seems just a little bit off.)
Lambert’s novel isn’t typically included in roundups of Los Angeles literature, but should be. I first came across the McNally Editions paperback while browsing in Skylight Books. It’s a pleasing design – quality paper, attractive layout and a wrap-around image of a rippling pool – and Lambert’s work inside is even better.
Looking to learn more, I reached out to Jeremy M. Davies, executive editor of New York’s McNally Editions, to discuss the novel and where he thought it belonged in the canon of Southern California literature.
“Absolutely, it is a forgotten classic,” says Davies during a Zoom conversation on Thursday. “I definitely would call it that, yeah. It seems like it’s filling in a piece of West Coast history in a way that is a little unfamiliar.
“Lambert is covering the comedown, as it were, from the heyday of the ‘60s in a way that is refreshingly bleak, and yet also kind of wonderful,” says Davies, who credits the writer Gary Indiana with bringing the book to his attention. “Gary is a great critic of Lambert’s work and actually hung out with the guy … so that’s what brought him into my field of vision.”
Deborah Eisenberg, Naomi Fry, Carolyn See, Armistead Maupin and Christopher Isherwood have praised the novel as well.
“He’s still kind of a password amongst a small coterie of admirers,” Davies says, comparing Lambert’s work to that of Joan Didion and Nathaniel West.
Less concerned with plot than setting a mood, “The Goodby People” consists of three connected novellas in which the main characters – a former actress, a draft-dodging hustler and a young woman troubled by ghostly visions – navigate a host of sexual, emotional and financial entanglements in Los Angeles.
“That’s the title, right? I mean, they’re always saying goodbye,” says Davies. “They’re just passing through everyone else’s stories – and their own stories.”
The narrator, a stand-in for the author, is a gay British writer working in Hollywood and observing it all. Lambert, a one-time film director who came to L.A. to work on screenplays, also wrote novels, including “Inside Daisy Clover,” which became a film with Robert Redford and Natalie Wood. (Lambert and Wood became friends, and he later wrote a biography of the star.)
Despite “Inside Daisy Clover” being more successful, Davies says he thinks “The Goodby People” is Lambert’s best.
“It’s such a deadpan, funny book,” he says. “It’s all those things you can say about a great novel, you know. It leaves you just a little bit unsure of who you came in with.”
“For me, it’s just perfect,” says Davies, citing the mix of despair and joy among those existing on the rough edges of the film world. “I think it holds its own with any L.A. book.”
It’s the kind of novel that McNally Editions, which was launched by Sarah McNally of the McNally Jackson bookstore chain, aims to bring back into print, he says.
“That’s exactly why we exist: to find books that ought to have had an audience but – for a quirk of taste or time – did not,” he says, adding that the goal for a book like this is to “bring it back into the world and give it another shot.”
“One of my favorite things to do, frankly, is to try to find these books that fall in-between the cracks, that are really great and might still have readership,” he says.
“I think the books we publish are really kind of special,” he says. “There’s no one moment for them. They just keep talking to us.”
For more information, go to the McNally Editions website.
In this file photo, author Gavin Lambert poses for a photo at his home in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 23, 2004, holding a copy of his book “Natalie Wood, A Life.” (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Claire Oshetsky was obsessed with one book growing up
Claire Oshetsky is the author of “Poor Deer.” (Photo credit Ellen Zensen / Courtesy of Ecco)
Claire Oshetsky, a former science journalist, recently published “Poor Deer.” The author recently spoke with Michael Schaub about the novel and took the Book Pages Q&A.
Q: Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
“The Wind in the Willows.” It’s the best story I’ve ever read about friendship. It rewards multiple rereadings. People don’t seem to know it isn’t for children. And we can all use a reminder, now and then, that “there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
Q: Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?
I didn’t grow up in a reading family. We had one book in the house when I was young: “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back” by Dr. Seuss. I was obsessed with it and for a while my mother had no choice but to read it to me every night. That’s how I learned to read — by watching my mother’s finger move across the page, over and over again, for nights on end. So I can’t think of a book that has had a greater effect on me than that. But sometimes I wish it had been Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman instead of Theodore Giesel who had authored our one book in the house.
Q: Is there a book you’re nervous to read?
No.
Q: What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that stayed with you from a recent reading?
“Dearest Sister, The moon has roved away in the sky and I don’t even know what the pleiades are but at last I can sit alone in the dark by this lamp, my truest self, day’s end toasted to the perfect moment and speak to you.” (From Lorrie Moore’s “I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home”)
Q: Do you have any favorite book covers?
Oh gosh, this is very self-serving but last week I was sent the Italian cover of my previous novel, “Chouette,” and it is so amazing, not just because it captured the story for me. It’s an original work done for the book by Spanish artist Sara Morante — here it is.
Q: Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?
Mrs. Gilles, my eleventh grade English teacher at Orono High School in Maine, taught me most everything I know about how language works. May every 17-year-old writer cross paths with a teacher like her.
Q: If you could ask your readers something, what would it be?
“What are you reading?”
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