by Gwen Davis
“Well, we all have to grow up sometime,” said Kate.
“I guess…” Jake said.
There was a rustle behind them. The flower girl came down the aisle, strewing rose petals on the silvered carpet. She giggled as she did so, and threw some of them at one of the onlookers she apparently knew. Behind her, the ringbearer came, with a gold ring on a silver satin pillow. He looked very serious, his eyes intent on the ring.
“It sounds like a great role,” Jake said.
“I imagine it will be,” said Kate.
“I’d really love to play it. When could I see the manuscript?”
“Probably in a couple of months,” she said.
“Why so long?”
“I’ll have to transcribe it. At the end of his life he was very drunk and probably ill, so the writing is hard to make out.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to wait. But I’m excited. I mean, really excited. I can hardly sit.”
“Well, it’s okay to stand,” said Kate. “Here comes the bride.”
Afterword
The statue of Larry Drayco stands beneath Victor Lippton’s office at Cosmos. It is a huge bronze head, with a very big grin on its face and oversized teeth.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences turned down the idea of a Larry Drayco Award. But a special dinner was held to honor him, which satisfied Lila Darshowitz, who attended the event. The dinner was at the Beverly Hilton, and it was such a success that it was decided the dinner would be held every year, as a way of raising money for the Writer’s Guild. Larry’s biggest debt, not counting what he owed lawyers, was fines he owed that union for not paying writers the Guild’s prescribed legal minimum. The award was to be given posthumously to the producer himself and accepted by Lila, for tenacity, courage in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, and, though it was not put into official language, chutzpah. But the first time turned out to be the only time it was presented, as they never found anyone again who had Larry’s nerve.
* * *
Asher Pfaltz, Hollywood historian and the town’s most erudite book critic, pronounced the novel West of Paradise a “devastatingly brilliant literary find, more devastasting for the loss not only of writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, but readers of an age that was bent on self-improvement.” He went on to quote a colleague at The New York Times who had noted that in Fitzgerald’s time people “read great writing because, like all good art, it was thought to improve the character of the person, to aid in the general bettering drift of the American dream.” Pfaltz then cited Horace, in his Ars Poetica, that good writing should both educate and entertain, and concluded that West of Paradise succeeded, although it had not yet been selected for Oprah’s book club.
The film, a screen adaptation by Kate Donnelly of the Fitzgerald novel, was produced by Norman Jessup in association with Perry Zemmis, and released by Cosmos Pictures, starring Jake Alonzo. In spite of more than respectful reviews, it did very little business since it had no special effects.
Also by Gwen Davis
NOVELS
Naked in Babylon
Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah
The War Babies
Sweet William
The Pretenders
Touching
Kingdom Come
The Motherland
The Aristocrats
Ladies in Waiting
Marriage
Romance
Silk Lady
The Princess and the Pauper
Jade
POETRY
Changes
How to Survive in Suburbia When Your Heart’s in the Himalayas
American Woman Loose in the UK
PLAYS
The Best Laid Plans
The Women Upstairs
Who Is Sylvia?
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
WEST OF PARADISE. Copyright © 1998 by Gwen Davis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
First Edition: May 1998
eISBN 9781466888197
First eBook edition: November 2014