Running along the crestline of the Santa Monica Mountains, L.A.'s legendary Mulholland Drive cuts through the geographic middle of the city as it intersects famous canyons (Laurel Canyon, Topanga Canyon, Benedict Canyon) and neighborhoods (the Hollywood Hills, Bel-Air, Beverly Hills' 90210 zip code). Straddling the city's urban and rural terrain, Mulholland embodies the warring forces that have shaped this metropolis of four million people. It is the crucible from which so much of the Los Angeles experience springs, with reverberations that extend deep into American society as a whole.
Author Paul Haddad grew up alongside Mulholland, granting him a front-row seat to its history and access to stories previously untold. He explores how the region permeates pop culture--from the musical birth of the California sound in Laurel Canyon to the hillside residents such as Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson who spurred Hollywood's 1970s golden age; from the modern fascination with true crime sparked by the Manson murders to the surreal stylings of director David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. Tackling subjects as varied as environmentalism, wealth inequity, car culture, natural disasters, and celebrity scandals, Haddad reveals Mulholland as a microcosm of America, where one glimpses both the glory and the wreckage of our pursuit of the American Dream.
Strap in for a wild ride.