California Chick

Stacey Grenrock Woods needs an editor to help her distill the copious humor and occasional insight of her slim but cumbersome memoir into an even slimmer, less effortful read. Or to enlarge it into something more expansive, weighty, and complete. As it is, I, California (subtitled The Occasional History of a Child Actress/Tap Dancer/Record Store Clerk/Thai Waitress/ Playboy Reject/Nightclub Booker/Daily Show Correspondent/ Sex Columnist/Recurring Character/and Whatever Else) reads more like a series of wandering journal entries than a book. It jumps around in time, often for no other reason than to tell an additional story that doesn't much illuminate the story just abandoned. By the time it returns to that original story, it's hard to remember what the heck the point was.

The good news is that Woods is very, very funny. She has a wicked streak that makes her adolescent struggles more than some Boy Meets World or Seventh Heaven sketch. Her sense of frivolity is laced with pathos, and her self-image careens from brassy to cowering, sometimes in the same sentence. Woods grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s and '80s and went on to work in Hollywood, and her cultural references will sound familiar to 30-somethings, especially fellow Angelenos. She writes extensively about restaurants and clubs that most L.A. residents, especially actors, will know and delight in having mocked.

Since Woods was, and still is, a performer, some of her most enjoyable and pathetic tales will also feel familiar. About catching the acting bug, she writes, "I'm still not sure at which point that little lamb of yesteryear turned into a stubborn, simple-minded ewe: I must entertain. They will watch me. I am going to make them know me. I will stand here until they hire me." And she writes about auditions, "You're sitting in a waiting room with seven other girls who are also reading for the part of 'Maggie, Eric's girlfriend,' and you see they all have on the same cute boot-cut jeans and sexy top. And you look down and see you, too, are wearing these jeans, this top, but you've never been more alone."

Despite the rambling narrative, at the end of the day Woods is still funny, still enjoyable to read, and still on to something about the world of L.A. that we inhabit in the early 2000s.

I, California, by Stacey Grenrock WoodsScribner, 2007, hardcover, 256 pages, $24.

Reviewed by Jackie Apodaca