Debris

It came to me one warm winter evening as I walked up Palm Canyon Drive and passed the Greyhound bus stop. An odd assortment of student travelers, elderly passengers and numerous transients were lined up on the street waiting for the bus to arrive. In a flash the phrase ‘Debris from the West Coast’ popped into my head. It stuck there even as I passed the motley-looking crowd and continued on.

Almost immediately a story began to percolate up from my subconscious. I thought about the woman at a consignment store weeks earlier who had announced to her volunteer partner that she was in Palm Springs because that was as far as her bus ticket would take her. I remembered the beautiful woman at Starbucks who claimed to have just arrived from India, having bypassed L.A. and who was looking for work. She hinted that she was as good with her brains as she was on her back. I politely declined to offer any suggestions for her future employment. I thought about the transients who camped out in the desert and only came into town at night to scrounge through the dumpsters. I thought about the oldsters who moved in their cheap trailers to live out the rest of their sad lives.

Then I thought about the Palm Springs neighborhoods where most of the homes have their own shimmering blue pool and many are surrounded by lush golf courses. Palm Springs was the perfect setting for two totally different worlds; rich and poor, cultured and illiterate, ambitious and arrived.

That story idea became a treatment. That treatment then became a rough draft. The rough draft, after five rewrites, became ’Debris.’ My novel became a microcosm of various relationships set in Palm Springs.  Palm Springs was the perfect setting for such a story. It’s your average surreal environment disguised as a resort community, vacation hotspot and the newest hipster’s haven. It’s probably no different than other resort communities like Key West, Las Vegas, Los Cabos or Aspen.

In short, it’s the perfect place for a collision of lives subtly hidden by crystal clear skies, shimmering pools of blue and warm seductive nights. ‘Debris’ is a Roman coliseum of broken individuals each at various points of conflict in their lives and almost all of them seeking some kind of redemption.

Millie is the aging movie star whom time and Hollywood have long since abandoned. She is an icon for all that was the glory and power of old Hollywood. But she is lost in the new Palm Springs.

Juliet is in the desert to find another man to fill out her tepid life. A chance encounter with Natalie, her new boss at the real estate firm, now elicits emotions long since buried beneath her puritanical upbringing and societies standards.

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.

Robert is the half-Mexican kid scrambling to grab a foothold in the construction trade while he fantasizes about a better life. Opportunities and pitfalls await his every step.

Miranda is the troubled young woman who gave Robert a start but now faces her own avalanching doubts about a future in the valley.

The Indian Kid wants desperately to break out of his tribal constraints while still respecting his elder’s traditions.

Other characters keep piling up. Each is an footnote or a chapter liner without whom the main characters couldn’t function or evolve.

The Goldsteins who lost a son in Afghanistan and now grapple with finding meaning in their lives.

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 to him.

Franee who has it all in money and power and beauty. All except the one thing she wants to control…Robert.

In its original form, Debris was too big as a print book (over 600 pages) and even larger as an e-book (more than 1500 pages.)  For an unknown author such as myself, a book of that size can be a very hard sell. So it was suggested that the original story be broken into two stories and a third added to form a trilogy.

                

           

Vida, my Jill of all Trades, has helped me break down the original draft into two separate stories. A third treatment written after the original ‘Debris’ and originally entitled ‘Tahquitz Dawn’ is now the basis for book three of the Debris series.

It will be a challenging and somewhat monumental task to rewrite books one and two and create an entirely new book three. But I think I’m up to the task. If for no other reason than my love of Palm Springs and the creative juices that flow there.

Once immersed in that task, I’ll be able to go back to old Palm Springs and relive the glory and glamor and sordid ‘tales of the city.’ I’ll journey with Robert as he struggles to carve out a place for himself among the rich and infamous. I’ll explore the strained relationship of Brett and Payton and get close to Juliet as she questions her own sexuality. I’ll peek into the lives of other characters that appear and then fade in and out of various chapters.

It’s going to be one heck of a journey. But with the San Jacinto Mountains looking over my shoulder, I’ll feel like I’ve come home again.