Francesca Lia Block's 'Weetzie Bat'

Francesca Lia Block's "Weetzie Bat" isn't so much a story as a collection of moments, strung together into something profound.

The main character, Weetzie, is a "bleach-blonde punk pixie" who prances through a fairy-tale version of Los Angeles without a care in the world, accompanied by a motley crew of friends and lovers: Duck, Dirk, My Secret Agent Lover Man, and Slinkster Dog.

The strength of this trippy novel, published in 1989, is its surrealist descriptions of Hollywood -- the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Especially tastes. A sampling (p. 44):

He kissed her. 

A kiss about apple pie a la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat. A kiss about chocolate, when you haven't eaten chocolate in a year. A kiss about palm trees speeding by, trailing pink clouds when you drive down the Strip sizzling with champagne. A kiss about spotlights fanning the sky and the swollen sea spilling like tears all over your legs.

In the end, the AIDS epidemic is introduced into Weetzie's carefree world, leading to the profound revelation that puts a beautiful thematic bow around the individual moments that make up this unforgettable fairy tale.

Before there was Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," there was "Weetzie Bat."

The best paragraph (p. 92):

Charlie said: "Weetzie, I love you and Cherokee and ... Well, I love you more than everything. But I can't be in that city. Everything's an illusion; that's the whole thing about it -- illusion, imitation, a mirage. Pagodas and palaces and skies, blondes and stars. It makes me too sad. It's like having a good dream. You know you are going to wake up.