LOLA, CALIFORNIA by Edie Meidav

Finished Fr 2/10/12

Victor Mahler was a philosopher/professor, and for several decades a wildly popular cult figure within the psychiatric community. He and his wife had one daughter, Lana, and a second young girl, Rose, who was very close to the family, and BFF with Lana. The novel is told 'out of time', and it is revealed that Victor is dying in jail, and was incarcerated for the murder of his wife, Mary. He discovered that she had been cheating on him for most of their marriage. Rose has become a lawyer and for many years she had been out of Lana's life. After becoming connected with the case, she tracks Lana down at a New Age Spa on the California coast. And, she convinces Lana to visit her father, and help pressure the authorities to let Victor die in freedom. I think that this is a fair summation, but I lost interest after one hundred pages, and skimmed the next two hundred pages over almost two weeks. (And, I read at least two novels before I finally forced myself to finish).

"A cerebral novel spanning four decades and encompassing the tribal conventions and counterculture movements of the 70’s and 80’s".

"Nature vs. nurture is the constant theme of this book. Are we predisposed to be who we are or does our upbringing influence who we become. Lola, California centers on two women Rose and Lana who were inseparable during high school but slowly grew apart afterward until Lana disappears from Rose's life after her father commits a terrible crime for which he was sent to death row. The details of these events slowly unfold. We follow Rose, Lana, and Lana's family through the years but the story does not unfold in chronological order but that storytelling device is effective in providing readers a glimpse of who these individuals are. It becomes obvious there is more to these characters than you first expect, especially Lana, yet it makes sense when taken as a whole. Sometimes the author loses track of her own timeline (some of her numbers don't add up) but it's easy to overlook these lapses. Recommend for those who enjoy novels about family secrets that slowly reveal itself over the course of the novel".

I found the novel to be a rather difficult read, and it was not worth the effort.
The disjointed time-line didn't help the story, and only added to the confusion of a very complex plot-line. I guess this rather compelling tale was wasted on the 'overly clever and convoluted' writing style. For me,'Style' dampened or stifled the 'Substance' of this novel.