Joining TheNervousBreakdown.com to talk Hollywood noir rivers and cancer clusters - By N.L. Belardes

I was honored when LA Times Bestselling author Brad Listi asked me to join his growing community over on www.thenervousbreakdown.com. The subject is creative non-fiction. So I kicked it off with a little talk about cancer clusters, a strange river and Hollywood's Backyard. I even included a series of photos taken just for my kick-off piece titled, "Hollywood's Backyard, the Mighty Kern, chingpea and Deconstructing the Mamao".

Here's an excerpt:

As river systems flow, the Kern River is one of the mightiest in California. A star of films in the early 1900s, John Wayne stepped into its waters to shoot Injuns and fist-fight villains. The river lapped at his feet, sparkled, smiled, shone its teeth, and wore its own watery cloak like a glittery dress. If it could have walked the red carpet in hundreds of premieres starring itself, it surely would have. Fatty Arbuckle, Gene Autry, William Fairbanks, Rin-Tin-Tin, Gabby Hayes, Rex the Wonder Horse—they were all in the Bakersfield area, Hollywood’s backyard, just 150 miles northwest of a big fat Chinese theatre, and digging their claws and hooves into the succulent waters of the Kern. That’s just before it flows into the lands of the Great Central Valley.

The Kern River moves from high in the Sierras, performs a glacial dance that wiggles into a Tina Turner shivering storm of water that flows from mountain valleys, through a man-made lake that once drowned the tiny town of Kernville, and bursts from a deadly canyon into the valley hinterland. Sonnenreise. What’s that fragrance in the valley, the smoggiest place in the nation?

(Read the full article and see exclusive photos)

I'm in great company. I'll let you know each time I post. It's a bit different style than you would see on the Paperback Writer blog. Much more of a fusion with the literary/historical/commentary...

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Tuesday, March 27, 2007. You can leave your response.