Frontispiece: Illusion? That's what many critics would call it. Yet in many ways, Palm Springs is a reality based on a fantasy come true, a fiction taken on solid form. Going yet one step further, Paradise of Desire explores how, given the lack of reliable historical writings about the renowned resort, novels go a long way to help us capture the reality of a place underlying its fictive gloss. The photo is a subtle example of the dynamics, the famed oval swimming pool at the exclusive Tennis Club, an early Palm Springs gathering place of movie stars, featured in several of the following novels.
Yet that hardly is the end of it. There are other illusions, other realities, revealed in the novels. Note the long-neglected ruins of an artist's cabin to the right of the palm trees, one of several dotting the hillsides above the lavish resort. They indicate yet other stories waiting to be told, some of them grim, some of them joyous.
Author: Peter Wild
The Estate of Peter Wild
soft cover - 281 pages
© 2011
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