Waiting for Lipchitz at Chateau Marmont

Set in two iconic localesHollywood's legendary Chateau Marmont and luxurious Fresno's Forestiere's Underground GardenWaiting for Lipchitz at Chateau Marmont is a bold and colorful critique of the California Dream through the prospective of a once-upon-a-time successful screenwriter and opulent wealth that taunts him. Caught between John O'Brien'sBetter and, perhaps, a Christopher Guest adaptation of Waiting for Godot, Janigian's Lipchitz is a new take on the absent protagonist and what's inevitably illuminated by its void.

Aris Janigian is author of two previous novels, Bloodvine and Riverbig, and co-author along with April Greiman of Something from Nothing, a book on the philosophy of graphic design. A Ph.D. in psychology, from 1993 to 2005 he was senior professor of Humanities at Southern California Institute of Architecture. He has published in genres as diverse as poetry, social psychology, and design criticism. He was a contributing writer toWest, the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, a finalist for the William Saroyan Fiction Prize, and the recipient of the Anahid Literary Award from Columbia University. He is a contributing writer forThe Nervous Breakdown. He lives in Los Angeles but seasonally returns to Fresno, his hometown, to pack and ship wine grapes.