The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 139

Sunday, September 13, 1987 Part VI 23 flos Angeleft Slimes GARFIELD by Jim Davis WRITERS: Bright Lights and Big Advances ('SLEEP IS WONPERFOL1) WHAT WOULP PEOPLE Bt) REALTIREP, PROBABLY WITHOUT SLEEP? n-' Engagements Continued from Page 22 "I would do any publicity that came my way. I just see it as a chance to sell the book," she explains. But it's also risky business. Esquire's Moss, for one, snickers that "probably the most influential thing she's done is appear in those Rose's lime juice ads." But Moss also admires Janowitz' penchant for self -parody. "Everything she does in the exploitation of her fame is done with a wink.

And I appreciate that," he adds. Ellis, who likens the attention to becoming the media's "Flavor of the Month," feels self-promotion is part of being a writer these days. "The company invests money and time in publishing your book, so there is a part of me that says, 'OK, you do owe them to go out and hustle around and sell some books for them so they can make back their he says. Over-exposure remains a very real problem, especially given the media's rush to cash in on the Brat Pack's celebrity. "Everything moves faster now, and exposure happens more," says David Groff, Janowitz editor at Crown.

Bob Asahina, vice-president of Simon Schuster and Ellis' editor, complains about "the media's overre-action in all four cases. What this kind of media attention does is make it very difficult to appreciate or criticize the books on their own terms." But Robert Wallace, managing editor of Rolling Stone, is not alone In the same Esquire issue Mclnerney was handed a "plum assignment" Moss' words to interview Mick Jagger, even though Mclnerney had never worked as a journalist. "That's one of the things Esquire does. They'll go for the name," says a former editor with the magazine. Rolling Stone also went for a name when in 1985 it published an article by Ellis on his generation of college kids.

New York magazine put Janowitz on its July, 1986 cover under the headline, "She'll Take Manhattan." The New York Times Magazine asked her to interview Bette Midler in Hollywood. Vanity Fair, Vogue, even Time and Newsweek all have assisted the Brat Pack's rise to stardom. What can be lost in the midst of their phenomenal success is the reason for it their style and subject matter. "They have really brought a new subject matter into popular fiction," says Ron Loewinsohn, professor of English and creative writing at Berkeley. "They all write about marginal subcultures the L.A.

punk scene in Ellis' case, East Village artists in Janowitz', underground club-crawling in Mclner-ney's and homosexuality in Leavitt's." Their writing styles are marked by innovation: Mclnerney pens "Bright Lights, Big City" entirely in the second person; Ellis de- Please see WRITERS, Page 24 in thinking that the media hype that has accompanied the Brat Pack's success "really goes above and beyond the quality of the work they're producing." The reason for that may well be the way the Literary Brat Pack has become the darlings of the media. Interview, usually the first publication to lavish attention on such wunderkind, profiled and photographed every Brat Pack charter member early on. But it was Esquire, which prides itself on introducing hot writers into the mainstream, that cemented the reputations of Mclnerney and Leavitt when Lee Isenberg, writing in a May, 1985 editor's note, described them as spokesmen for their generation. Assists From Magazines "I think we're always looking for new smart voices," Moss explains. "Also, there's not a whole lot of people who are youngish like David and Jay and unusually articulate." Indeed, many more thousands of people would read Leavitt's essay about "The New Lost Generation" than both of his books put together.

Moss maintains the piece was so successful "that unfortunately David had to live with being the spokesman for his generation longer than he liked. Probably, he's one-quarter sorry he did it." Yet Leavitt followed it up with a major piece in the New York Times Book Review about his new generation of young writers. Washington. Her father is president of Annandale Pasadena. Her fiance, an administrative assistant to state Sen.

Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), is a graduate of UC Irvine and member of Beta Theta Pi, and also received a master's degree in public administration from USC. His father is president of Sievers Research Co. Logan-Jones The engagement of Miss Lucia Alston Jones and Ben Harrison Logan III has been announced by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Herbert Jones Jr.

of Decatur, Ala. The bride-to-be, a graduate of Auburn University and the George Washington University School of Government and Business, is currently employed by the Federal National Mortgage Assn. Her fiance, a graduate of Duke University and Stanford University Law School, is a partner at O'Melveny Myers, Los Angeles. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs.

Ben Harrison Logan Jr. of Jekyll Island, Ga. Volk-Wizman Mrs. Luna Wizman of Los Angeles has announced the betrothal of her daughter, Aline, to Bryan Volk, son of Mr. and Mrs.

Stan Volk of Beverly Hills. The bride-elect is owner of the French Connection boutique. Her fiance is owner of the Volk Boroda Realty his father is a real estate investor. Lawler-Volk Mr. and Mrs.

Robert Harkins Volk of Rolling Hills have announced the engagement of their daughter, Elisabeth Marion, to Gregory James Lawler, son of Mr. and Mrs. Byron James Lawler of Ventura. Miss Volk, a graduate of Marlborough School and of UC Berkeley, where she was affiliated with Delta Gamma, was a 1983 Las Madrinas debutante. Her father is chairman of Martin Aviation Santa Ana.

Her fiance, a graduate of UC Berkeley, where he was a member of Kappa Sigma, is a student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. His father is a partner in the law firm of Lawler Bonham Walsh in Ventura. Sievers-Stewart Mr. and Mrs. R.

Bruce Stewart of Pasadena have announced the engagement of his daughter, Jody Lyn, to Paul Johnson Sievers, son of Robert Carl Sievers of San Marino and the late Mrs. Sievers. Miss Stewart, also the daughter of Mrs. Lois Ann Needham of Costa Mesa, is a graduate of Occidental College and a member of the Junior League of 129.99 Standard Our exclusive Velours Royale white goose down pillow. Below.

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