Another City by Patrice Chaplin

I'm trying to come up with an accurate synopsis for this sequel to Albany Park, but it is not so easy. Maybe it'll suffice to say that writer Patrice Chaplin continues her memoirs in this book. Now the divorced mother of two school-age boys, Patrice has published a couple of books but is still at a point in her artistic life where she writes in a drafty London house with no money for heat, as much to escape her dreary and physically uncomfortable surroundings as for any other reason. Having spent a few days as a house-guest in wintertime London, I shudder for her, and have since gained a firm appreciation for Canadian indoor heating systems (randomly offered tip: avoid Melbourne winters too).

But the book begins in an optimistic moment, when the author and would-be script-writer arrives in warm and sunny California, making her first of many trips to the spot from whence her famous grandfather-in-law came: Hollywood. If Albany Park is a portrait of the artist as a young scatterbrain, Another City is a portrait of the artist looking for a break, and struggling to keep financially afloat in the meantime. And while her big break never comes in a sudden thunderclap, Patrice does have many interesting encounters along the way. In fact, the book doesn't so much focus on the details of her career, but rather the web of changing relationships that is spun over the years while she carries on. So does Patrice get everything she dreams of in the end? Oh-ho, you'll have to read it for yourself. Ask Amazon.com to search for this out of print book, no copies at Advanced Book Exchange when last searched.

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