California Dreaming: A Smooth-running, Low-mileage, Cut-price American Adventure Book

Some time after he quit as bass-player with 80s popsters the Bluebells, 30-something Scot Lawrence Donegan became a Californian used-car salesman. California Dreaming is his account of that unique spiritual journey. It could have been a literary disaster. Thankfully Donegan is as good with a word processor as he was with a Rickenbacker: California Dreaming is funny, clever, sharp and very readable. And as the book chugs spiritedly along, investigating the seamy underside (and overside) of daily life at Orchard Pre-Owned Autos, it also pulls the neat trick of making you like and empathise with the victims of its well-observed satire. The narrative dynamic of this travelogue-cum-autobiography derives from the reader's wonderment at whether Donegan will ever sell a motor. He starts off by being amusingly awful, a "greenpea", he can't "work the line" to save his life. But with tuition from his colourful comrades on the car lot, he improves. By the end he's a real pro, able to sell a 77 Mustang just as well as Tony "The Tank" Tognazzini. En route to this ultimate epiphany, Donegan goes to classic LA parties and clichéd LA shopping malls, thereby getting to see a slice of the American Dream from the perspective of the American Worker. If the result isn't immortal reportage, it's still a hoot: California Dreaming is a very decent little runner indeed. --Sean ThomasRead More