The Last We Fake
An LA novel-in-stories each season, along with selected short fiction from exceptional authors, both new and established, whose works take place at the shifting borders of the American Dream. Each season, the podcast debuts an original novel in serialized episodes. Separately, the episodes stand alone, but together they comprise a novel-length journey, with a cast of recurring characters.
Episodes
With Neva in surgery and the waiting-room TV blaring early morning kids’ fare (Baby Huey, Captain Kangaroo), Wanda transforms into a trivia fanatic to settle her nerves and rattle Howard’s. But even as NBC’s chromatic peacock heralds a new age for the industry, she already knows deep down what’s next: Wanda, in living color, spotlit in a future sitcom that her emotional anchor from the B&...
"Just follow this hallway to the end, turn left, turn right, then turn left again, not at the first but the second doorway, then turn left again and you’re there."
"And that’s all there is to it?" Wanda asked.
He didn’t detect her sarcasm.
It was the totally wrong time, but with Wanda, when wasn’t it? And who was she, spread-eagled on the concrete, lying beside an open can of Castrol...
You can’t postpone the death of the one person who always loved you, not really. Though if you try, it may lead you to some achingly dangerous places. Such as: gagging in bathroom stalls, or giving celebrity flirting lessons to a nurse with shellacked hair. Or on the cold ground beside your car, beneath the knowing fingers of a handsome doctor you felt sure you were trying to drive away from.
CREDITS:
Wanda dances to El Watusi, the drowsy Sparx sings along, and even the suspicious nurse will chime in on “Where the Boys Are” if you flatter her enough.
But after hearing Sparx may be committed, and desperately pretending it can't ever happen to her, Wanda seems tethered to the world only by her cravings. Such as: hip young Dr. Bowtie in his red Fiat, asking “Can I see you sometime?”--either di...
Record player in tow, bent on igniting a party for the suicidal Sparx at Good Sam's (Marilyn Monroe stayed here--it must be good), Wanda recalls the childhood picnic where her family's powerlessness to save a crash victim stole her appetite and, seemingly, her faith in the cosmos. Now she's hiding self-inflicted bald patches under a loaned head scarf (ugly enough to shock her devastated gay bestie awake), desperate ...
So maybe Wallichs’ "Battle of the Surf Bands" wasn’t the best time and place for Wanda to demand a display model record player for her hospitalized pal and makeup man, Sparks, her beloved mutual crybaby over “Where the Boys Are.” But she could take in the teen-bikini scene from the ledge she’s climbed up on, kick her heels to the pulsating Watusi beat, and try to make sense of her own e...
In author Noelle Calabretta’s dream-infused and bittersweet new short story, "Sleepless Sheep," an insomniac rice farmer and failed poet who left his long-ago love beneath Mt. Fiji makes a return journey to the woods where she’s remained.
The story was developed in an upper-division fiction workshop at California State University, Long Beach.
A second-year Fine Arts Ceramicist at California Sta...
From begging Jock Penny’s autograph at Coffee Dan’s, to blundering into a surf music contest at Wallich's, to brushing past a wisp of her former self outside a flower shop, Wanda is waylaid by memories of better times—the onion rings at Frankie’s (“the world’s only delicious vegetable”); the awards ceremony where, slid between two beaus at an effortless 103 lbs, she’d ...
Using acting-school chops to conquer her deeply ingrained instinct to run away, Wanda finally phones for the directions to St. Jude's Hospital. But the flickering world at Sunset and Vine floods her with memories--from golden visits to the Hollywood Ranch Market, to the high-rise vistas behind casting couches where she used to fight her way free, to The Brown Derby. . . The Smoke House . . . the warm safety of Coffe...
Achieving a moment's peace between mind and body in the bathroom of June's trailer after the aborted three-way, Wanda staggers off toward a darker reality ...fully reassembled, although, yes, forgetting her horse ... But in the shelter of her own Daytalk dressing room, teen memory is rounding the corner from summer's sewing with the relatives to riding with boys.
In what one listener describes as "O...
This week's episode: "The Playwright,” a remarkable new short story by first-year talent Natalie Goss, about the subdued heart of a young Los Angeles theater reviewer-turned-dramatist who's losing the script.
Goss is a Child Development and Family Studies major now contemplating a minor or possible double major in English. She dreams of publishing a collection of both fiction and nonfiction...
It's production as usual in Hotchkiss's office, despite the fact Sparks has landed in Good Samaritan, Wally Cleaver is sneaking cigarettes in fear of his dad, and Wanda's fixations lurch from suicide by graham crackers to the long-ago memory of a then-dark-haired actor at Sardi's (so she HAD slept with Chase McSteve!) to the sweaty three-way inside June's wardrobe trailer that Wanda badly doesn't want until she badl...
Somehow surviving an equestrian gauntlet of obstacles capped by an AWOL 14-year-old Wally Cleaver(“Will you go out with me when I get my license?”), Wanda has finally managed to dial out and hear the terrifying news about her grandmother. But her stage presence is nearly shot when the rotund, legendary fright maestro who directed The Crows and 57 Stairs finds her sitting in his office chair.
In wh...
This was nothing like being a lamp ray glued to the back of Chase McSteve. Still, the weird-looking horse seems safe, until an explosion on the set of Abilene sends both Wanda and panicked beast off course--close enough to the home of television's Cleaver family that she could practically raid the fridge, while no closer to a word from grandmother than when she threw a jealous tantrum at Howard that same morning.
"In a couple days, either this would all prove to be a huge comedy of errors, or nothing would ever be the same...."
It's existential overload for Wanda, as sex life, pet care, family catastrophe and unanswered phones collide with an all-powerful tub of vanilla ice cream.
In what one listener describes as "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" if it were written by a woman, Catherine Hein's historical novel ...
[UPDATE TO LISTENERS: Recordings for Catherine Hein's The Celebrity are on pause for a few weeks while she gets through some health procedures and related tsuris. Wanda will be back! Correspondence and well wishes may be sent via info@alanrifkin.com. Thanks for your understanding.]
This week: Some people are the type to jump on a message marked "Urgent." For Wanda, it's complicated.
In what one listen...
Half-buzzed from a night of more sex than rest with Howard the Ex, and done dirty by Dexatrim, Wanda is about to get even higher when the après le bain interview with Chase McSteve leads to deep kissing and a motorcycle date in the works.
In what one listener describes as "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" if it were written by a woman, Catherine Hein's historical novel traces the journey of Wanda Fleming,...
Wanda's moonlit drive on Mulholland turns into a hillside sleep-it-off, causing her to miss a big production meeting; then Howard somehow gets a foot in her door on the eve of her location swim with Chase McSteve.
In what one listener describes as "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" if it were written by a woman, Catherine Hein's historical novel of early '60s Hollywood traces the journey of Wanda Fleming, ...
Wanda survives her first appearance on the new show, but careful what song you perform afterward with a broken heart.
In what one listener describes as "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" if it were written by a woman, Catherine Hein's historical novel of early '60s Hollywood traces the journey of Wanda Fleming, the tenacious, calamity-prone co-host fatale of TV's Daytalk in the spring of 1962. Called to her gran...
There goes Wanda's diet after encountering ex-boyfriend Howard on the eve of her Daytalk debut.
Catherine Hein's historical novel of early '60s Hollywood traces the journey of Wanda Fleming, the tenacious, calamity-prone co-host fatale of TV's Daytalk in the spring of 1962. Called to her grandmother's funeral in Orange County, the heroine must face life without her closest ally, settle on one lover, conquer ...
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