Blogs and Stories
The West Coast Gossip Girl
At 19, Harvard student Isabel Kaplan has just published her first novel, Hancock Park, which exposes the excesses of L.A.’s wealthy high-school elite. Read the story behind the book.
My first young-adult novel, Hancock Park, is named after the neighborhood where I grew up in Los Angeles. I wrote the book during my junior and senior years of high school, and it just hit bookshelves June 30. I turned 19 last month, and I have just finished my freshman year at Harvard. Given all these things, I have no delusions of normalcy. However, I also believe that if you think anyone is “normal,” then you probably just don’t know him or her well enough.
Typical live auction items at the annual gala fundraiser might include a private home-cooked meal by Wolfgang Puck, walk-on parts on any number of hot TV shows, and a one-on-one basketball game with Magic Johnson.
My childhood experiences fall somewhere toward the middle of the Hollywood-upbringing bell curve. Compared to the very small Los Angeles circle I orbited in, my childhood bears some resemblance to “ordinary” (whatever that means). My parents never hired Cirque du Soleil to perform for my birthday party or arranged for me to ride into my bat mitzvah party on an elephant. I never walked red carpets or attended the Academy Awards, and neither of my parents has ever been featured on the cover of a tabloid (although yes, they have made occasional appearances on the inner pages).
However, compared to the whole city, state, or country, I imagine that I lived a very privileged childhood. My high-school senior trip was to the beach in Hawaii, my brother’s bar mitzvah party took place at the scenester-chic Roxy club on Sunset Boulevard, and the parents’ directory of my elementary school reads like a condensed guide to the Hollywood elite; typical live auction items at the annual gala fundraiser might include a private home-cooked meal by Wolfgang Puck, walk-on parts on any number of hot TV shows, and a one-on-one basketball game with Magic Johnson.
Hancock Park. By Isabel Kaplan. 72 Pages. Harper Teen. $16.99.
I have always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. I ran to college on the East Coast, eager to throw myself into a new world and call somewhere a little less Botoxed “home.” Sometimes I still hate the city that raised me, want to shout at Hollywood, erase TMZ, and scream at Perez Hilton, “I don’t care where Lindsay got high last night or whether Miley is keeping her abstinence pledge!”
But at other times, I tell college friends about how beautiful it is in California and how we think 50 degrees is freezing. I find myself surprised at the nostalgia in my voice as I explain how impossible it is to get anywhere without a car, and how, in the 10th grade, the popular thing to do was to go to the special nights at Hollywood clubs. For the young and glittery in L.A., party-promotion companies would rent out dance spaces and throw under-21 parties with names like “Seduction,” where tickets were at the very least $20, a bottle of water cost $5, and everyone was drunk upon arrival because alcohol wouldn’t be served inside. Think Gossip Girl with less preppiness, more blondes, and more sunscreen.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
At least she can prove, as a Harvard student that, she does attend Harvard in an age where harvardophiles rage in eastern cities to the point where one whispers Harvard and women drop their panties and men drop to their knees and employment is offered to any person who whispers Harvard whether they can prove attendance or not.
The Ivy curse for the rest of us: we have to prove our credentials every time, outperform our Harvard friends and get past the harvardophiles and the imposters every time.
Harvard has history, which people value. An Ivy league education is quickly sinking into doldrums though. There, an education is not had, but rather a way of thinking is created.
Besides, a student will take what they want from whatever it is they choose to; a book, a professor, an experience.
Isabel wrote an interesting article that kept my attention, something most bloggers can't do.
"An Ivy league education is quickly sinking into doldrums though."
Really?? Did I miss something? (please don't say "the recession")
A novel about an LA kid who goes to college on the East Coast and then writes abouth the excesses of LA teenagers, sounds like "Less Than Zero" by Bret Ellis. I highly recommend "Less than Zero".
Glad to hear the publishing industry is recycling more old themes.
Yawn
great. another a privileged kid with too much time on her hands and a laptop creating puerile pablum for the illiterate elite.
Harvard is bankrupt. What a perfect place for little Miss LA, who is the same, all the way around.
My husband graduated from Harvard (back when he got in despite his heritage, not BECAUSE of it). My daughter (who refused to attend Harvard because it wasn't a toll call away from home) now lives in L.A. and wants to be an entertainment lawyer. They both tell me that the only difference between the two is the weather!
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.