Friday Freebie: Lola, California by Edie Meidav

Congratulations to Sara Carminati, winner of last week's Friday Freebie, The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson.

This week's book giveaway is Lola, California, the new novel by Edie Meidav. The plot summary from the publisher: "The year is 2008, the place California. Vic Mahler, famous for having inspired cult followers in the seventies, serves time on death row, now facing a countdown of ten days. For years, his daughter, Lana, has been in hiding. Meanwhile, her friend Rose, a lawyer, is determined to bring the two together. When Rose succeeds in tracking down Lana at a California health spa, the two friends must negotiate land mines of memory in order to find their future."  The Millions included Lola, California in its list of Most Anticipated Books of 2011, saying, "Meidav is a rare thing, a less than well known writer who continues to publish big, dense, challenging novels with a major press. Should Meidav be better known? Almost definitely."  The Daily Beast also glowed with enthusiasm in its review of Meidav's book:

This gorgeous, audacious novel goes far beyond a story of two girls....Lana and Rose grew up in Berkeley, California in the 1980s, and the book is as much about that town and the millennial Northern California zeitgeist as any character. Meidav is harrowingly precise in her descriptions of the place, where the eucalyptus “smelled like both cat pee and colonialism” and the men “focused on outwitting actuarial odds by their faithfulness to California protocols: ease, cheekbones, the low glycemic index of their diet, fire trail hikes, cardiovascular gestures, wealth, Tuscan vegetables, phytonutrients, heart-benefiting, and cancer-fighting volunteerism, the kind who into their fifties remain manboys, pursuing life-risking activities without ever wiping off that constant smile. If misfortune happens to such men, a hemorrhaging bank account or loss of an actual limb, such men call it process or a learning experience, ready to die before admitting failure, failure bad as a hairweave, a condition practically requiring surrender of the state’s driving license.” Yes, that sentence is long. Meidav’s prose is writerly: exact yet maximalist, prodigiously lyrical. Together with the novel’s jump-cut structure and length, Meidav asks her readers to slow down. The opposite of a page turner in the best way, the novel prompts us to linger, re-read, flip back, and figure the damned thing out. But don’t worry: Lola, California is no modernist convolution. Meidav offers more than pretty sentences. This book has plot in spades.

If you'd like a chance at winning a copy of Lola, California, all you have to do is answer this question:

Fill in the blank: According to Meidav's biography at her website, "As a child, she acted as if language were indeed a _________."

Email your answer to thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.   One entry per person, please. Please e-mail me the answer, rather than posting it in the comments section.   Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Aug. 18--at which time I'll draw the winning name.   I'll announce the lucky reader on Aug. 19.