Patrick Roth Starlite Terrace Suhrkamp Verlag, August 2004. 150 pp. ISBN 3-518-41662-6 Starlite Terrace is an old apartment building in Los Angeles equipped with its own swimming pool. The four chapters in this book tell the stories of four of its occupants. There is a narrator figure, a German who is part of the Starlite Terrace 'furniture', but the details of his life are of secondary importance: his crucial role is that of listener. He bears witness to the stories of Rex, Moss, Gary and June. The first story takes place in Noah's Deli, and revolves around Rex's father, who is said to have been Gary Cooper's double in High Noon. Rex hasn't seen his father since he was a very young boy. Now he wants to find his way back to him by making him a hero. Rex - 'the king' - dies while the narrator is on a visit to Germany, leaving the true and fictional elements of his life still unclear. In the second episode Moss McLeod, in his tiny, untidy apartment, talks at length about his daughter, whom he has not seen since his divorce forty years ago. Even so, he is sure she will visit him any day now and waits dully for that to happen. The next chapter concerns Gary, an ex-drummer and now a born-again Christian, who, despite his vaunted new faith, is still a lost soul. He talks while the narrator is driving him through L.A. to collect money from people 'who owe me' and needed by him to impress a girl. And finally there is June who, years ago, worked as a secretary in the Fox studios in Hollywood where her husband had an affair with a starlet called Marilyn Monroe. In the final scene June takes a dip in the pool and emerges refreshed, but still disappointed by life. The effortless simplicity of these tales belies their intricacy and depth. Patrick Roth is an expert storyteller who gradually reveals the great dramas that shape even the most seemingly ordinary of lives.