Bright Shiny Morning

讓歐普拉無法入睡的男人James Frey新書《明亮的早晨》2008年10月文學編輯推薦。

《明亮的早晨》像是一個充滿希望的開始。他寫洛杉磯，洛杉磯之所以為洛杉磯，洛杉磯有一個香蕉博物館等等的荒唐史，「是一個擁有270萬沒有健保的人的都市，還有一萬二千人替討債公司工作的城市。」當然還有好萊塢明星，故事裡的Amberton就是公認的好明星，好爸爸，不過他卻也無法背叛自己，因為他愛的是男人。或是年輕聰慧的墨西哥裔女人Esperanza，讓自己處在被羞辱低下的狀態，只是為了要成功。青梅竹馬跑到洛杉磯尋夢，努力在這個都市邊緣求生存。流浪漢住在公用廁所，直到有一天早上，打開門，發現一個垂死的女孩……

One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers his first novel—a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original.

Dozens of characters pass across the reader's sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home.

Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.