As part of its annual Santa Monica Citywide Reads program, which features Raymond Chandler’s noir classic “The Lady in the Lake,” the Santa Monica Public Library presents “Bay City and Beyond,” a special event looking back at the local history of Santa Monica and Los Angeles in the noir period.
This special event will take place this Saturday, March 10 at 2 p.m. in the Main Library’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium, 601 Santa Monica Boulevard.
In 1943, Raymond Chandler released his fourth novel, “The Lady in the Lake,” which like many of his other novels was partially set in “Bay City,” his stand-in for Santa Monica.
As many readers would agree, the setting of Chandler’s novels was as much a living and breathing character as his classic private detective, Philip Marlowe.
In the special event, Bay City and Beyond, the Library takes a closer look at that local character with a quartet of presenters who will reveal the real Santa Monica and Los Angeles in the time period Chandler was writing.
Included among them is Ernest Marquez, author of Noir Afloat: Tony Cornero and the Notorious Gambling Ships of Southern California; Elizabeth Ward and Alain Silver, co-authors of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles and The Film Noir Encyclopedia; David Kipen, author of Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels; and Cynni Murphy, Santa Monica Public Library’s Image Archives Librarian.
Santa Monica Citywide Reads is a community reading program that encourages everyone in Santa Monica to read and discuss the same novel in book discussions and special events held throughout the city.
In 2012, the program marks its tenth anniversary with the featured novel, The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler.
This special Citywide Reads event is presented free to the public and is open to all. Seating is first come, first served.
For more information on this year’s slate of Santa Monica Citywide Reads discussion and special events, www.smpl.org/Raymond_Chandler.aspx or contact the Santa Monica Public Library at 310.458.8600.
