A Story to be Told
Back around 2000, Palm Springs was on the cusp of some pretty major changes. Old Hollywood was coming to an end. It was the beginning of hipsters, millennials, and outliers populating the town. Together, they were changing the social and cultural landscape of the Coachella Valley.
While it was too late for me to grab the holiness of old Palm Springs, I was still determined to write a modern-day soap opera that captured some of the characters; sad, true and honest, who inhabited this special mecca in the desert. One day, a casual stroll up Indian Canyon kickstarted the whole writing process.
I was passing by a bus stop and came upon an odd assortment of homeless people, transients, lost souls, and the occasional college student just in from L.A. Out of the blue, a thought slammed into my brain. “They’re all just debris washed up from the coast,” I thought. I knew beneath the confluence of blue skies and turquoise pools, there were many more just like them.
Thus, Palm Springs became the perfect setting for my operatic drama of ambition, passion, and unrequited love. My elevator pitch was simple enough: ‘Palm Springs is haunted by the rich, the famous, and the broken.’ The novel would be called ‘Debris.’ This would be their story; in three parts
First, I envisioned this homeless kid named Robert, moving around the state and ending up on a bus heading for Palm Springs. There were a number of interesting characters he meets on the bus and more he comes across after he establishes himself in Palm Springs.
There is his love interest, Miranda. She’s damaged goods but determined to repair the hurt and anger brought on by her dysfunctional family.
Millie is the aging movie star whom time and Hollywood have long since abandoned. She’s an icon for all that was the glory and power of old Hollywood. Now she’s lost her way in the new Palm Springs.
Juliet is in the desert to find a man to fill out her tepid life. Then a chance encounter with Natalie, her new boss at the real estate firm, elicits emotions long since buried beneath her puritanical upbringing.
Brett & Payton seem the perfect couple newly ensconced in Palm Springs’ growing design industry until a chance encounter with Kevin threatens the stability of their relationship.
There’s a native kid who wants desperately to break out of his tribal constraints while still respecting his elders' traditions. He faces great danger as he searches for the ghosts of Tahquitz Canyon.
A host of secondary characters fill in the troughs between the drama. The Goldstein’s lost a son in Afghanistan and now grapple with finding meaning in their lives. Then there’s despicable Tom Thornton whose eye for Juliet doesn’t rise above her waist and who must deal with a sordid past that is fast catching up on him. Francee who ‘has it all’ in money and power and beauty. She has everything except the one thing she wants to control and can’t…Robert.
‘Debris, the Trilogy’ is the perfect confluence of troubled lives subtly hidden beneath crystal-clear skies, shimmering pools of blue and warm seductive nights. It’s a Roman coliseum of broken individuals each at various points of conflict in their lives and all of them seeking some kind of redemption.
Books one and two take part in roughly the same continuing time period. Book three begins about six months later. Book three allowed me to fill out the entire story and then realistically wrap up the lives I’d created.
Victor Hugo said it best: ‘A writer is a world trapped inside a person.’
‘Debris, the Trilogy’ has ensconced those individuals I’ve meet in Palm Springs; at least in my mind. Individuals whose lives are worth capturing in their own words. It’s been a remarkable journey for all of us.
The Debris trilogy is now available on Amazon for a special price.
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