“The process of book writing for me is entirely one of trial and error.”

Matthew Specktor considers the overlooked work of Eleanor Perry alongside his own Hollywood past.

She was someone whose past was so fully vitalized within the present that it seemed almost inseparable.

This is the second installment of Specktor’s culture diary. Click here to read part 1. DAY FOUR 8:30 A.M. Breakfast, and a chunk of The Pale King. 11:40 A.M. I meet up with The Los Angeles Review of Books’ splendid poetry editor, Ms. Gabrielle Ca…

DAY ONE 11:00 A.M. Where better to start a Los Angeles–based culture diary than on the city’s enpretzeled freeways? I leave an editorial meeting and take the 101 to the 5 to the 10 to Boyle Heights, en route to David Kipen’s Libros Schmibros, “a c…