Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey. John Murray, 2008, $33.

“Welcome to L.A. City of contradictions,” the blurb greets you. Like “Welcome to the Valley of the Tweed, Valley of Contrasts”, but a bit snappier, perhaps. Not that 500 pages of contradictions is that snappy, though some of the pages contain a lot of white space and just a few lines about the history of Los Angeles. This is clearly meant to be the portrait of a city. What Balzac and Victor Hugo did for Paris, and Dickens for London. Now it is Los Angeles’ turn.