Reaching for the Gods

A novel set in the 1980s, completed in the 1990s but speaks volumes of where we are today. It is 1984, the year of the Los Angeles Olympics, and Merle LaBrune plans to remain young for however long it takes for her to ascend a pantheon of Hollywood idols and be worshipped as a goddess. However, she has the unerring feeling she is about to be dropped from the long-running soap opera in which she stars. Her life is further complicated by her live-in lover's decision to bring his daughter, Heidi, to come live with them. Heidi does her utmost to make Merle's life a living hell. The story starts at the very beginning, so to speak, with a dream sequence of the archetypal Eve and ends with Merle's ambition of godhood almost realized: banged up in jail as she atones for the sins of mankind. But her delusions are finally shattered when she is confronted with her true identity. Could Merle LaBrune possibly be a 72-year old woman called Eva Braun?