In the misery memoir stakes, James Frey appeared to be a winner. His first book, A Million Little Pieces, was apparently a concoction of youthful addictions and got him into Oprah's book club. When it turned out to be fiction, his publishers offered duped readers their money back. Bright Shiny Morning, his first novel acknowledged as such, is his redemption: a homage to Los Angeles and the west coast dream. Frey portrays some very stock characters - the teenage lovers Dylan and Maddie, escaping from abuse in Ohio into seedy motels and dead-end jobs; the preening movie star Amberton Parker, living Hollywood hypocrisy to the hilt; the self-conscious Esperanza, an embodiment of all the hopes and humiliations of Mexican immigrants; and Old Joe, a bum washed up on the beach with a bottle of chablis for comfort - and intersperses their LAs with snippets of Los Angeles history. It's Robert Altman's Short Cuts put back on paper. And while Frey is no Raymond Carver, he turns clichés into characters robust enough to carry this 500-page Californian odyssey.