When in doubt, reach for a stripper
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‘Birds of Paradise’ is a collaborative novel-in-progress appearing daily in the Los Angeles Times. Chapter 1 -- written by LAT columnist Steve Lopez -- threw a bunch of balls in the air and asked readers to step in and juggle. Lopez gave them a balding TV producer and his gold-digger wife, who is an ex-reality TV celebrity; a stupid congressman and a tough guy named Ernesto; a glass house in Malibu; a bribe; a trip to Cabo -- oh, and a stripper from Jumbo’s Clown Room.
Hundreds of readers have sent in their own versions of the succeeding chapters (they must be 600 words or fewer and crafted in a tight time frame). The newspaper’s judges have found the entries so good that not only is the winning entry posted, but also at least one runner-up and sometimes as many as four, as with today’s Chapter 9. (Chapter 10 will be posted by 7 p.m. Pacific time.)
The winning entry for Chapter 2 was very good -- sleeker than Lopez’s first and a touch more evil. It also hurled the plot in a new direction.
What you’ve got is a Southern California noir, of course. Me, I love this stuff, and reading Chapter 2 got me addicted. One hitch: With only the winners building the main plotline, the runner-up entries create a massive snarl of parallel universes. It’s not just one collaborative novel -- it’s a massive tree-like fiction with dozens of buds and sprouts contradicting one another.
Meanwhile, the message boards are serving as a kind of editorial meeting around the evolving story line. Contributors and readers alike discuss the way the story is moving (and the arcana of the submissions process).
Who is contributing? Everyone from a recent college grad to Kelly Lange, the TV news anchor turned novelist. I even found an old boss -- well, my boss’ boss, actually -- among the runners-up. Joseph Fink of Camarillo has scored twice so far, with the winning entries for Chapter 2 and Chapter 8.
The winners will be invited to read their chapter at the 13th annual L.A. Times Festival of Books held at UCLA on April 26 and 27. Any Californian can play. (Here are the rules.)
And if you’re stuck on where to begin, think Jumbo’s. In noir, you can’t go wrong with a stripper.
Carolyn Kellogg
Photo by Glenn E. Wilson via Flickr