The Lonely Hearts Bar

The novel takes place in a bar in an American suburb that has uncannily linked the lives of the main and even secondary characters, and then in Los Angeles: the «city of lost angels» (one of the angels materializes in the form of a beautiful boy on the streets of the metropolis). Connie, with hopes of conquering Hollywood, heads to Los Angeles to take courses in filmmaking and screenwriting. On the way, she stops in a roadside bar where she meets David Ogden and learns many dramatic details about his life. In Los Angeles, she faces the unconventional lessons of Mr. BB, who is wholeheartedly devoted to the «magic of cinema» and draws his students into active participation in the «global battle between good and evil» exclusively through art. She meets David Ogden again, befriending him and his pal Lee, has a relationship with Jack Neumann (a talented student in the performing arts faculty), which sparks onstage and develops in the best tradition of the genre. Connie’s encounter with an angelic young boy on the streets of Los Angeles becomes a turning point in her life: his death in a car accident sets off a chain of dramatic events.