My Old Home Town

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I recently visited my Dad in central New York, meeting up with my sister, who came from DC. We ran errands, did paperwork, bought new flowers for Mom’s grave and, of course, went to Dad’s nursing home. He’s… fading, which is not a tragedy, considering he’s been more than ready to go for several years. The situation led to the following conversation:

Barb: After Dad dies, we’ll never come back to Liverpool again.

Julia: Well. A couple times a year to tend to the cemetery plot.

Barb: Okay. I’ll do the spring if you’ll do the fall.

This all got me thinking about the concept of home towns, because Liverpool, NY is one of two places I consider my home town. We moved there right before I started by sophomore year, and I graduated from high school there. I sang in the Episcopal church choir, and I acted in the community theater. I went to college a little over an hour away, In Ithaca. And, of course, I came back hundreds of times over the decades to stay with Mom and dad, dragging boyfriends, then a husband, then kids.

 

But the concept of moving back to Liverpool makes me break out into a cold sweat. (Apologies to Liverpudlians, who are justly proud of their home.) It’s got an eminently walkable village on Lake Onondaga, with beautiful mid nineteenth century houses and miles of gorgeous lakeside parks. It’s close to the cultural resources of a large city, and to the biggest and most advanced medical care outside of NYC. The price of houses are rising, but it’s still affordable, and Central New York has a very low cost of living index. And, not to get political, because we try not to here, but it’s in a Blue state, which makes me feel more comfortable. If it were in NH or MA I’d jump at it!

And yet… Is it because my every teen-age embarrassment and misstep happened there? Is it because it was my parents’ choice, not mine? Or is it because I spent my first quarter century relentlessly moving, and learned to never look back? (Liverpool was the eighth place I lived, and I would go on for five more moves until settling here in This Old House.)

What do you think, Reds? What do you consider your home town, and would you - if you could - go back?

LUCY BURDETTE: I consider Berkeley Heights NJ to be my hometown, as I lived there from first to fifth, and then ninth to twelfth grades. And my parents stayed there through my college years. It was a great place to grow up, with lots of kids in the neighborhood in the early years, block parties, a walkable grade school, and so on. But no family lives there now, and I can’t imagine going back. My dearest friends are now in CT and Key West, plus the mystery writing community scattered across the country. 

 

 I’ve taken John on a hometown tour (he says 3 times, I say twice), so he can now point out the place where my brother and I wiped out on a bike, where I drove the family car into a chain that wrinkled up the hood like tin foil, and where the first German shepherd pooped on the angry man’s lawn. I do kind of yearn for a town that I’d always lived in and where my relatives still live, but it isn’t going to happen so I love where I am!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Go back? Like, live there? Ah, I’m pretty happy right here outside of Boston. I was born in Chicago, and that would be a cool place to live, kind of midwest-Boston (or Boston is east-coast Chicago) so that would be doable but feels administratively difficult. I have no real ties there, although some lovely family lives there. I really grew up outside of Indianapolis, a place that was incredibly rural at the time, more than rural (ponies, barns, bus to school, no stores walkable, and barely neighbors), but which is now chic and artsy and desirable.

 

 The house where I grew up (which was a gorgeous old  farmhouse, renovated, and quite special,with huge fireplaces and an art gallery), was re-renovated into being unrecognizable by the new owners  after my stepfather died and my Mom moved to a different suburb.  Gosh, Indianapolis itself is unrecognizable! I would not even know my way around! I have lots of acquaintances from high school there, but we live in entirely different worlds. I do feel connected when I meet someone from Indiana, and I always watch the Indy 500 and feel nostalgic about it, so some of that emotion never leaves. But I was happy to move on.

 

RHYS BOWEN:  I grew up in a small village in Kent, south of London. Our house was down a long drive in the middle of apple orchards and hop fields. It was a long walk to the village which had one row of shops and a pub. It took an hour, two buses to get to school. The only other important thing was the paper factory that my father ran. My mum became principal of the school. You can guess that other kids kept their distance from me! Except for Christine, my best friend with whom I’m still friends. 

 

But as for that idyllic village—it’s been swallowed up into London suburbs. I didn’t know where I was last time I was there as the motorway comes through it. My house was torn down for that motorway. And no ties to it for many years as my parents moved to Australia.  Our one UK connection is John’s sister’s manor house in Cornwall. I’d move there in a heartbeat if my darned children weren’t all here!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I didn't get very far away from where I grew up--only about fifteen miles--in Richardson, Texas. When my parents built there in the late forties, it was rural, with a little main street. The town has been totally swallowed by Dallas now, of course. My parents sold their house when I was in my mid-twenties and I never really forgave them for it.

JENN McKINLAY: I have two hometowns, both are in Connecticut. Kent is in the mountains and we lived there until I was nine. Most definitely an idyllic childhood, running amok in the small village with my brother. It was the sort of place that when you were naughty, your mom knew about it before you got home because the entire town raised you. We moved to Niantic, which was on the shore, after that and it, too, was a lovely place to live, but it was bigger and had a more seasonal residence vibe to it. The high school years were fun and many of my classmates still live there. I love CT. It’s a part of me, but I never had the urge to settle there. I love AZ and it, too, is a part of me, but I expect that Hub and I will retire elsewhere. Not for nothing, but Hawaii seems nice :) 

 

JULIA: Ooo. Better make sure you have plenty of guest rooms, Jenn. I'm sure you'll be lonely and want to invite your blogging sisters to come visit you.

 

HALLIE EPHRON: My hometown is Beverly Hills. I know, fancy-schmancy, but it didn’t feel that way to me growing up. We lived in what they call the “flats”... between a more middle income neighborhood (really) south of Wilshire and the uber-wealthy enclaves north of Sunset and up in the canyons. I roller skated on the sidewalk and rode my bike all over after school and played in the elementary school playground a few blocks from the house. It was more or less free-reign childhood in what felt, then, like “any” neighborhood to me at least.

These days, there’s something about Southern California that makes me feel old, fat, and poor the minute I disembark at LAX. Car travel is a nightmare and it’s pretty much the only way to get around. If it weren’t for a beloved sister, her family, and a couple of long-time friends I’d never go back. 

 

 

Hallie: Time traveling to the people if not the places...

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HALLIE EPHRON: It's WHAT WE'RE WRITING WEEK, and I have not been writing. Instead I’ve been traveling and talking about about Night Night, Sleep Tight.

The book takes place in Beverly Hills, and I just got back from the nicest ever trip to Southern California. I almost wrote “trip back in time” but it really can’t be back in time, because while we New Englanders like to preserve our landmarks, those Southern Californians are all about making it bigger and better and adding parking garages.

When I grew up there (BEFORE there were zip codes), I never thought about whether the houses were big or not.  I loved the whitewashed stucco walls, the orange tile roofs, the enclosed courtyards with their lush tropical green, a showy orange and blue bird of paradise tucked in here and there.  Each house ended only a few feet of a wall or densely planted hedge that separated it from its neighbor.

In Beverly Hills, latitude equated to status. There was really a right and wrong side of the railroad tracks that ran right through town. 

Above Sunset, way north in the canyons, houses were big sleekly modern in the gated estates.  That’s where big stars like Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra and Charleton Heston lived. Just above Sunset lived TV greats like Lucille Ball and Jack Benny. 

Our house in 1967

Below Sunset, in the “flats” where we lived, the houses were more modest. My parents were screenwriters and our neighbors were Carl Reiner (he was writing for Your Show of Shows) and David Janssen (TV actor: The Fugitive). 

Our house in 2013

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South of Wilshire the houses grew smaller still until there were multi-family apartment complexes surrounding concrete courtyards.  It was almost like some force of nature was at work, siphoning away anything organic and replacing it with dust and cement.  Looking at them now, those less wealthy neighborhoods look cozy and the houses and apartments go for millions.

The house my parents sold in 1967 for $100K and sold in 2014 for $7M. Yes, SEVEN MILLION, a number I can barely wrap my head around.  And the house isn't an inch bigger than when we moved out.

Almost nothing I remember from growing up in Beverly Hills remains. No Robinsons or Bullocks or Lanz where I spent hours trying on clothes I didn’t buy. Or Jax, the fancy women’s clothing boutique that I was too timid to walk into. The old Beverly Hills Library in the north wing of the city hall is gone; the new library where I spoke is gigantic, gorgeous, and new

No Hamburger Hamlet (for Those Potatoes or an Oak Plank) with its wonderfully hokie dioramas hanging over each booth with "scenes" from Hamlet, as in "Get thee to a bunnery!" No Bifs where I spun around on a stool at its one counter and sipped chocolate malteds.

No Wil Wrights ice cream on south Beverly Drive or C. C. Brown’s hot fudge on Hollywood Boulevard. I wonder what happened to the cow mural on the wall of 31 Flavors.

I tried to pay a nighttime visit to the Electric Fountain which figures prominently in my book and is still there! But it was walled off and being renovated. And "the witch's house" which was just down the block from us was still standing, though much more buffed and polished than I remember it.

Only DuPars at the Farmer's Market looked exactly like it once did, and though parking isn't the breeze it once was, their pancakes with real maple syrup are still delicious.

Still there, though, were some cherished friends. Leonora who became a torch singer and then a Rolfer; or Christie who was the world’s best elementary school teacher and now volunteers at the school she retired from; or Jodyne, an attorney who manages the shopping centers her dad opened when we were kids; or Tony who wrote for the high school newspaper with me and is now a judge and a writer.

I was glad to get back to Boston where, like Beverly Hills, it’s the people not the places that make it feel like home.

Can you go back and visit the places from your childhood, or like me, do those exist only in photographs and memories?

Hallie writes a prequel: PHOTOPLAY

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's a very special day for us here on JRW when we get to feature one of our own! Hallie Ephron has a terrific new novel coming out March 24th. (I got to read it early, lucky me!) And today, just to whet our appetites, she's releasing a short story set in the same time and place and featuring some of the same characters. Here's Hallie to tell us about it.

HALLIE EPHRON: By the time I finish writing a novel, usually I’ve put the characters through so much grief and turmoil that a sequel would be cruel and unusual punishment. Just for instance, ninety-two year old Mina Yetner goes through trial by fire (several times) in THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN. I imagine Mina going on without me, her final years unfurling in messy episodes, not acts, blissfully free of drama and suspense.   

But when I finished NIGHT NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT (which comes out in March) I realized there was more story to tell. Not what happens after the novels ends, but what went on before.  And out “popped” (if only) a longish short story, PHOTOPLAY: A STORY OF SUSPENSE which goes on sale today.  

The main characters from NIGHT NIGHT are in PHOTOPLAY:  movie star Elenor “Bunny” Nichol; her hunky Argentine lover, “Tito” Acevedo; her 15-year-old daughter Joelen (Joe-Ellen). Plus her daughter’s best friend Deirdre Unger.  

A professional photographer (the consummate Hollywood inside outsider), Duane Foley, is the narrator. The pictures that he’s hired to take at Bunny’s glamorous party are supposed to reflect Bunny and her guests at their best and most beautiful, the kind of pictures that ran in movie magazines like “Photoplay,” publications that were virtual PR machines for the stars. 

At the party, Duane’s camera gets an eyeful. But it’s not all what he or his host bargained for. 

Writing the story, I mined my own memories of what it was like to grow up in Beverly Hills in the 60s, the daughter of Hollywood screenwriters. I recreated the kind of parties my parents used to throw (laughter, music, a haze of cigarette smoke, and too much booze) and upgraded the guest list to include A-list players like Doris Day and Rock Hudson. I took the Beverly Hills house I grew up in, moved it from “the flats” to north of Sunset, and tripled its size.   

At the party, Bunny allows Joelen and Deirdre to dress up and answer the door, just the way my parents did. But the girls stay up far past the time when they’re supposed to have turned into pumpkins, and they indulge in cocktails far more potent than Shirley Temples. 

In the party’s aftermath, neither of them will be the same.   

NO SPOILERS! I worked hard to make sure that PHOTOPLAY doesn't spoil any of the surprises in NIGHT NIGHT. But if you read the story you'll have a few insights into the novel that other readers won't.   

The e-story PHOTOPLAY (HarperCollins/Witness Impulse) is available starting today for $1.99:

AMAZON 

ITUNES/APPLE

BARNES & NOBLE

KOBO

INDIEBOUND

BOOKSAMILLION

GOOGLE PLAY  HARPERCOLLINS
 
 
DEBS: Hallie, when I read NIGHT NIGHT, I couldn't get enough of the slightly seedy glamor of Hollywood in the 60s, so I'm buying PHOTOPLAY right this minute. And I love the photo of the house you grew up in. Can you tell us a bit more about it in the comments?

What we're writing: Tales from Hallie's OUT file

HALLIE EPHRON: It's What We're Writing week, and I am so happy to report: I am not!

Not writing a draft, that is. Three weeks ago I sent my editor a the finished manuscript for Night, Night, Sleep Tight. A few days ago I got an email back, and I quote: "This is my FAVORITE of all your books. I LOVE IT." Her caps. 

And I thought, OF COURSE! 

I began writing this novel two long years ago. It's morphed and twisted, and finally I wrestled it into some semblance of order. I have plots. Subplots. Characters I adore. Themes! I don't even know where they came from but there they are!

But honestly? If my editor had written me and said, "Uh oh. I hate to say this, but it's just not that good..." I would have believed it.

Instead of toasting myself with Prosecco Bellinis and baking a celebratory pineapple upside down cake, I'd be flagellating myself with recriminations and saying, "I knew it was terrible. What ever made me think I could write a novel?"

I might even have highlighted the entire 309-page manuscript and dumped the whole thing into my OUT file which is already 229 pages long.

Every novel I write has an "OUT" file. It's where I put the stuff I write and then delete. Plot twists that go nowhere useful. Characters I no longer need. Overwritten description. Underwritten description. Passages that are too dark or too snarky or just plain boring.

This is why it takes me so long to finish a novel. Even though I outline, when I go to write it I'm constantly second-guessing myself, taking out, revising, doing what I hope amounts to making it better but sometimes only making it shorter.

So today I thought I'd entertain you with an excerpt from my OUT file.

Here's a passage from what I thought would Page One of the novel but which now lives in the OUT file. Back then, the main character was  named Beth (she's now Deirdre.) She was living in New York (now she's in San Diego.) And she's received an invitation to attend her 20th Beverly Hills High School reunion (the entire reunion is gone from the book).

Beth hasn't been back to Beverly Hills, never mind her old high school, for ages. The prospect of seeing girls she went to school with brings back a flood of unpleasant memories.

From my OUT file:

The invitation to Beth’s 20th Beverly Hills High School reunion came on a Saturday.  Don’t miss this evening and chance to visit with “old friends."

Her gut twisted just thinking about it. Up came memories of shoes—that’s what growing up there had been about.  This seemed perfectly ludicrous in retrospect, and even back in 1961 she'd known that getting Those Shoes wouldn’t make her fit in.  And yet in ninth grade, what she lusted after, dreamed about, obsessed over were baby-blue, pink, or avocado-green ballerina flats with a T-strap low across the instep and three petal-shaped cutouts over the toe.  They were made by Pappagallo.

Sure, you could get knock-offs at Chandlers a few blocks away, but they weren’t soft and supple, and they didn’t flex when you wiggled your toes. Even Beth could have spotted wannabe shoes, though the term wannabe had yet to be invented in what would be 90210 when they got around to using zip codes. 
   

Can you tell this comes from experience? Which is why I had to take it out. Because this did not turn out to be a book about me. It did not turn out to be about not fitting in in high school. And the fictional main character I created evolved so much over the course of writing the novel that she no longer sounded like this. 

Still, I love those paragraphs so I shall keep them for perpetuity rather than wipe them out completely. Maybe one day I will write something it fits into.

I did, in fact, go to my twentieth high school reunion. I wore a blue flowered shirtwaist dress and the popular girls were there in short-short lace baby-doll dresses and footless tights. I felt like a piece of outsider art.

Which brings me to today's question: What were "those shoes" at your high school, the object of desire that seemed to separate the kids who had it all from the rest of us?