The Novel
An Acquired Taste was published by this local company.
What is Bitterroot Mountain Publishing House?
This actress, best known for her role in "The Wizard of Oz", has a cameo appearance singing "Poor Little Rich Girl" in Chapter 32.
Who is Judy Garland?
What is Sunset Boulevard?
Mark started writing An Acquired Taste in November 2020, which is known as NaNoWriMo in writing circles, short for this phrase.
What is National Novel Writing Month?
Mabs has a guilty pleasure of reading these young adult novels that feature a teenage female sleuth.
What are Nancy Drew mysteries?
The two main characters in An Acquired Taste hail from this Canadian province.
What is Saskatchewan?
This actor turned politician's first wife was Jane Wyman. Dagny drops his name in Chapter 7 while enticing Mabs to come to a Hollywood party.
Who is Ronald Reagan?
This hotel's pool is featured on the cover of An Acquired Taste.
What is Hotel Bel-Air?
Mark could not have completed this novel were it not for the help of this group that he is a member of.
What is the North Idaho Writers League?
In Chapters 43 and 44, Mabs stars in a movie set during a failed revolution on this Italian island.
What is Sicily?
The first role Mabs is cast in is an adaptation of this classic Middle Eastern tale.
What is 1001 Nights?
This actor, who starred in North by Northwest and An Affair to Remember, and makes an appearance in Chapters 24 and 25, retired to Palm Springs in 1954, which is also the setting of those two chapters.
Who is Cary Grant?
This famous theater, which still hosts many premieres today, is one of the settings for the penultimate chapter of An Acquired Taste.
What is Graumann's Chinese Theater?
In terms of how writers approach the actual act of writing, they generally fall onto a continuum between these two types that both begin with the same letter.
What are planners and pantsers?
This man was elected to his first full term as president in 1948. Chapter 36 features Mabs greeted by jovial co-workers the morning after his election.
Who is Harry Truman?
"Star-Crossed Lovers" is the title of Chapter 28 and is a reference to this Shakespeare play.
What is Romeo and Juliet?
This buxom and brassy blonde actress, known for being difficult to work with during her almost 50 year career, was born in Wallace, Idaho.
Who is Lana Turner?
In Chapter 6, Mabs clears her head by visiting this Los Angeles site which features mastodon statues.
What are The La Brea Tar Pits?
The inspiration for An Acquired Taste started with one name, Mabs, which was shared by a stuffed animal that Andrew got at this fast food restaurant.
What is McDonald's?
In Chapter 48, Mabs attends a party on March 19th at the Los Angeles Country Club. This is the date each year that this famous avian migration takes place. It is also the name of the jazz standard that is playing when Dagny walks in.
What is "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano"?
When Mabs first arrives in Los Angeles, she finds work in this industry.
What is advertising?
This director, who was married to the answer to the $100 question in this category, directed Meet Me in St. Louis and Father of the Bride, and had a daughter named Liza, who became a famous actress in her own right.
Who is Vincente Minnelli?
Near the end of the novel, Mabs moves to this neighborhood, which was recently destroyed by fire.
What is Pacific Palisades?
This is the official term for a short quote that appears at the beginning of a book or chapter. All of the ones appearing in An Acquired Taste are sourced from Golden Age Hollywood celebrities.
What is an epigraph?
This piece of female fashion popularized in the 1950s and featuring a popular pet was designed by Hollywood actress Juli Lynne Charlot in 1947.
What is the poodle skirt? (It originally featured dachshunds.)