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# ‘Santa Monica Canyon’
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-canyon/
- Published: 2007-09-22T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T02:55:56.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Downtown, #archive-import

*By Gregory Hinton • iUniverse, Inc.*

Fame is something that comes and goes with the tide. It is based on public perception. If you had a short period of time in which to capture fame what would it look like?

In “Santa Monica Canyon” we have a slice of life covering a summer of discovery featuring three men who seek fame. Edward wants to keep his fame as a movie actor. John wants to regain his fame as a popular artist. Mark is yet to obtain his fame through his writing.

One reason to recommend this piece is the use of our city as a backdrop. Our city of Santa Monica is often overlooked in sittings for stories. It is refreshing to see a book that majors on our beach and downtown area. The scenery adds a sense of realism to the tale of three men whose lives intersect in the artist studio: John Moore, the artist who is seeking to recapture his fame, Mark, who is rebounding from the death of his father, Edward, who cares for little except his image on the screen, “regards himself as a legitimate actor and not a movie star.”

The story opens at Will Rogers Beach as “Mark Osmond emerges from the Pacific Ocean on a bright Southern California June day.” We meet John who is “desperate to find a sitter” and “one fresh face has captured his interest, the man who moments ago walked out of the sea.”

The intersection is when Mark discovers that Edward posed nude for John not too long ago. “He stops cold. He comes to an oil panting of Edward. He returns to the date of the show. April, over a year ago. Edward never mentioned sitting for his portrait. Mark keeps his cool.”

In a short 196 pages and 12 chapters, Gregory Hinton offers us a story with a primary theme of imbalance of power in a relationship. It is a relationship between a younger man and an older gentleman, the younger starting to ascend in prestige and the older man fighting to hold on to his position in the film industry. I feel the story could have been told just as well without having the main characters living gay lifestyles, or is the author trying to tell us something about the type of people in these occupations?

Told in the third person, omnipotent viewpoint, it is intensive reading. It will appeal to those who like their stories without excessive wordage. The characters are well drawn. The mood of the book is somber. It’s a good read.

It has the sub plot of Mark trying to break away from the influence of Edward and establish himself as a poet.

Hinton’s background in film is very evident here in the way he handles this story. He uses terse, unemotional prose. He establishes a scene; brings in the character, uses flashback to fill in the details, back to the present, freeze frame, on to the next establishing shot.

The novel was inspired by several sittings the author did for the canyon artist, Don Bachardly, and the David Hockney cubist masterpiece, “A Visit With Christopher and Don, Santa Monica Canyon, 1984.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 22, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/092207.pdf?ref=smdp.com)