Everybody's very happy / 'Cause the sun is shining all the time / Looks like another perfect day… These are three lines from Randy Newman’s song, “I Love L.A,” the anthem for my hometown, blaring over the PA after every Dodgers victory, and probably the last thing a Chicagoan wants to hear as freezing rain whips in from Lake Michigan. It’s also a cliché. Los Angeles isn’t nearly this idyllic (or fun), but it makes for a good story.
“I Love L.A” is the first thing that comes to mind when I read the publisher’s description of Seth Greenland’s second novel, Shining City, about a average guy who inherits an escort service run out of a dry cleaners. A story like this can only take place in Randy Newman’s stylized, Hollywood vision of (forgive the cliché) La-La Land. And in many ways, Shining City validates this preconception with glass-enclosed hilltop mansions, ostentatious Bar Mitzvahs, trophy wives, and iconic L.A. locales like the Mondrian Hotel and Pink’s Hot Dogs. But Greenland does something unexpected as he speeds along this well-worn caper-in-the-glitzy-city road; beneath the plastic veneer, Shining City’s heart lies within an average suburban American family.
Marcus Ripps is your average schmo, an unemployed middle manager whose toy factory just moved to China, wallowing in a sexless marital malaise, and drowning in debt. He lives in Van Nuys, in the sprawl of the San Fernando Valley, worlds away from the glamour of Rodeo Drive, with his shopkeeper wife, his low-key son, and his pot-smoking, pole-dancing mother-in-law.
Marcus’ life takes a providential turn when he inherits a dry cleaning business from his estranged brother, Julian. He sees the business as a way to finally stake out his own piece of the pie, but he soon discovers that it’s a front; Julian (aka Juice) was a pimp. Frustrated by his lack of success, and despite his reservations, Marcus feels like he’s out of options. With the help of Julian’s former driver, a dread-locked Russian b-boy named, Kostya, Marcus decides to give it a go, but in his own way. He sets up a 401-K and a health plan for all of his new employees and has each sign a waiver clearing him of responsibility.
When the expected complications arise, Marcus is soon forced to come clean to his wife, Jan, about the true nature of the dry cleaning business. Soon it becomes a family affair and, with Jan’s marketing acumen, the business becomes an internet-fueled success. With the money rolling in, Marcus and Jan experience a renaissance in their marriage and their libidos. For the first time in his life, Marcus feels like a winner. But soon his success draws the attention of a rival pimp and, again, more of the expected complications ensue, complete with the offbeat villains, alluring vixens, double-crosses, and unlikely allies.
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