The following review was contributed by PAUL LAPPEN

This is a group of short stories and poems about life in present-day Hollywood, as seen from the bottom looking up.

Alex is a native of Sarajevo who found himself in Los Angeles by way of Brussels and Chicago (plus an army stint in Vietnam). He had writing in his blood, and figured L.A. was the place to go. While amassing rejection slips, he worked a variety of jobs including furniture moving, painting apartments, TV repos and delivering phone books door-to-door.

Much of the book concerns his experiences behind the wheel of a taxi. Some of those he meets are decent, reasonable people; others can be described in terms much less complimentary. One day, an older woman gets in his cab and says that she is Maria Callas, the international opera star. The only problem is that Maria Callas died several months previously. When apprised of that fact, ""Ms. Callas"" gets very angry and belligerent and refuses to pay her fare. The police are called.

Later in the book, Alex sells his cab and goes in with a couple of friends on the making of a horror film to break into the video market. Called Bloodsucking Geeks, the budget can best be described as tiny. All of the video distributors are either not interested, or they want total control on a vague promise of future payment. After a couple of months, Alex has no money to buy a cab to return to the streets, so he enters a period of involuntary dieting (starvation).

City of Angels? Maybe for that couple of percent of people who get anywhere near that thing called ""Fame and Fortune."" Everyone else is just trying to get by in a place where, if you don't have the right job and a flashy car, the odds are very much stacked against you.

This book is excellent. It's full of honest, heartfelt writing that certainly shows a different view of Hollywood. It's also highly recommended.