Brentwood - Thursday August 10th at 6:30 pm -- Carla Malden discusses and signs "My Two and Only".
Join us on Thursday August 10th at 6:30 pm as we welcome Carla Malden to the store to discuss and sign My Two and Only.
This event is free to attend and will be held in the courtyard at DIESEL, A Bookstore in Brentwood.
Free seating is limited. To reserve a seat, please purchase one copy of a book for one seat.
A little blue Tiffany box – with its diamond engagement ring inside - sets Charlotte Most reeling. It took her twelve years of widowhood to find herself in love again. But marriage? She hadn’t seen that coming. Questions begin to consume her. Who will Charlotte be if she’s no longer a widow? Does old love prohibit new? Does new love diminish old? How can she marry her one-and-only twice?
Heartache and hope propel Charlotte on her perilous journey from devoted widow to joyful fiancée.
My Two and Only is a love story about clinging to the past and embracing the present. About memory and the stories we tell ourselves. About identities, inner and outward, and the struggle to make peace between them. Humorous and insightful, poignant and profound, My Two And Only explores the question: how much happiness can we allow ourselves… and which self might that be?
Carla Malden was raised in Los Angeles and grew up surrounded by the entertainment industry. Her father was Academy Award-winning actor Karl Malden. But the people who surrounded the Malden dinner table were family friends first, Hollywood luminaries way down the list. Carla credits her father with imparting a strong work ethic. He taught her, by example, to care passionately about your work and to always dig as deep as you can.
Carla attended UCLA where she majored in English and graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She began her career in motion picture production and development. Carla segued into screenwriting when she and her husband, Laurence Starkman, became a writing team. The adage professes that you should be married for better, for worse… but not for lunch. Carla and Laurence defied that. They were often asked who did what. Their answer: Laurence was more visual and Carla more verbal. But over time, they absorbed one another’s strengths. Today, Carla often visualizes scenes in her novels unfolding cinematically as she writes. During this time, Carla co-wrote her father’s autobiography, When Do I Start? and discovered how much she enjoyed writing prose. After Laurence’s death, way too young, she wrote AfterImage: A Brokenhearted Memoir of a Charmed Life, a fiercely personal account of the last year of his life and her first year without him. Despite the pain of reliving that time, the process reminded Carla of the power and beauty of prose. She turned to fiction with Search Heartache (2019) and Shine Until Tomorrow (2021) - two well-received novels that explored similar themes of women and girls overcoming loss and pain and finding new paths forward.
Her new book, My Two And Only, delves into the psychology of a woman who is still grieving the loss of her husband but finds herself falling in love again. But how to give up the widowhood status that has so defined her life – and her heart – for the last decade? The broad strokes of that story parallel Carla’s own life -- seven years after her first husband’s death, she married again. Beyond that, My Two And Only is a work of fiction.
Carla Malden lives in Brentwood with her husband, entertainment attorney Norman Beil. They reside 10 minutes from her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, who arrived at the beginning of pandemic lockdown, and reminds her every day that even though the world seems to have spun off its axis, life is good.
Carla attended UCLA where she majored in English and graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She began her career in motion picture production and development. Carla segued into screenwriting when she and her husband, Laurence Starkman, became a writing team. The adage professes that you should be married for better, for worse… but not for lunch. Carla and Laurence defied that. They were often asked who did what. Their answer: Laurence was more visual and Carla more verbal. But over time, they absorbed one another’s strengths. Today, Carla often visualizes scenes in her novels unfolding cinematically as she writes. During this time, Carla co-wrote her father’s autobiography, When Do I Start? and discovered how much she enjoyed writing prose. After Laurence’s death, way too young, she wrote AfterImage: A Brokenhearted Memoir of a Charmed Life, a fiercely personal account of the last year of his life and her first year without him. Despite the pain of reliving that time, the process reminded Carla of the power and beauty of prose. She turned to fiction with Search Heartache (2019) and Shine Until Tomorrow (2021) - two well-received novels that explored similar themes of women and girls overcoming loss and pain and finding new paths forward.
Her new book, My Two And Only, delves into the psychology of a woman who is still grieving the loss of her husband but finds herself falling in love again. But how to give up the widowhood status that has so defined her life – and her heart – for the last decade? The broad strokes of that story parallel Carla’s own life -- seven years after her first husband’s death, she married again. Beyond that, My Two And Only is a work of fiction.
Carla Malden lives in Brentwood with her husband, entertainment attorney Norman Beil. They reside 10 minutes from her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, who arrived at the beginning of pandemic lockdown, and reminds her every day that even though the world seems to have spun off its axis, life is good.
Event date:
Thursday, August 10, 2023 - 6:30pm
Event address:
225 26th St
Suite 33
Santa Monica, CA 90402
Event Type:
Event Location: