TWO VISIONS, ONE BOOK

Robert Draper’s disparaging review of Bella Stumbo’s “Until the Twelfth of Never” (Book Review, Aug. 8) consists of three related assertions, to wit, that the book: (1) “suffers greatly, if not fatally, for (sic) its own lopsided sympathies,” (2) “views the murderess as a victim from beginning to end, and sees the deceased as two people who virtually forced Betty Broderick to pull the trigger,” and (3) “reflects both the ambition and the effort of a definitive work, however hampered it may be by prejudices of the heart.” Have Draper and I read the same book?

Draper appears to have missed the point of the book entirely. Stumbo, it seems to me, has written a richly textured account of why Betty Broderick murdered her husband Dan and his second wife Linda. Stumbo’s book speaks volumes, fairly and accurately, about the decline of family values, child raising, feminism, the permissiveness of no-fault divorce laws, the cynicism of the legal profession, and the subjectivity of our modern judiciary, not to mention thoughtful and trenchant profiles of La Jolla and San Diego as Southern California communities in the 1980s. As I read some passages, I was reminded of Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities.”

CHARLES EDUARD BIGEARD, RANCHOS PALOS VERDES

The tale of Dan and Betty Broderick has for the last several years had me riveted to the massive media coverage which it has spawned nationwide. Therefore it was with great interest that I recently purchased a copy of “Until the Twelfth of Never.”

The book consumed the better part of four days of my life . . . To call this work gripping would be an understatement. For days I felt depressed and listless, not realizing why. After I finished reading, it dawned on me that this book was more than just a compelling story, it was a descent into madness, with me as an unwitting participant along with the principals. I had lived the story, and in doing so learned from both sides how easily and unwittingly we can weave the threads of our own destruction.

Draper doesn’t get it. His allegation that Stumbo “views the murderess as a victim from beginning to end” doesn’t fly. Anyone who has read this book will realize that everyone involved in this tragedy was a victim. If as he alleges “one can almost see the mesmerized look in the author’s eyes” why were my allegiances constantly shifting from one participant to the other and then back again until I realized the impossibility of fingering one single villain? If, as Draper seems to be suggesting, the author has constructed a paean to Betty Broderick, why have authors of the stature of John Gregory Dunne and Charles Murray used phrases like “that rare reporter who misses nothing, is never fooled and writes like a dream” and “one of the toughest, fairest journalists working” to describe the author in regards to this book?

ERIC D. FURAN, LOS ANGELES

TO EVEN THE SCORE

Normally I would not write to comment on The Times’ political tilt, which I have acknowledged long ago, if not accepted, but I became incredulous on reading a book review of “The Last Brother” by Joe McGinniss (Aug. 8). The reviewer, Robert Scheer, is a contributing editor.

The extended invective, slurs and downright calumny heaped upon the author read like something out of a 19th-Century political tract. Or perhaps a high-school journalism student who had gone blotto in the heat of overcommitment to slaying with words. From what I could gather, McGinniss had done a smear job on Ted Kennedy and Scheer was out to even the score. I hold no brief for McGinniss, and certainly don’t intend to read his book, which I think should not have been given the prominence of a front page in the Book Review section in the first place.

ANNE WILKS, SAN DIEGO

I have not yet written a book, but when and if I do, should it come under the scrutiny of the Times Book Review and writer Robert Scheer, I know one thing for damn sure. I’m glad my teeth are straight.

CHLOE ROSS, LOS ANGELES

POETIC JUSTICE

Thank you for printing the two poems by Officer Lorne D. Gilsig in the Book Review (Aug. 1). They packed a strong emotional wallop. They are helpful in making it possible for non-law enforcement people to understand the emotional stress and frustration that those in law enforcement suffer. You did all of us a big favor.

LEE GEISER, LOS ANGELES

Officer Gilsig with his poetry in the Book Review of Aug. 1 illustrates a technical fact:

The LAPD does not supply an armored vest that can shield the aching heart of a poet.

ED BONDS, HESPERIA

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Margaret Leslie Davis’s book, “Rivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles” (Book Review, July 25) makes an excellent point: “What is needed is another visionary Mulholland to genially deliver the bad news and rally support for a creative solution, for there are no more rivers to bring to the desert.” Indeed.

As our civilization has become more complex since the time of William Mulholland, our aversion to risk (no matter how infinitesimally small) has become even greater. It is immeasurably more difficult today for a Mulholland to spend public moneys to build an aqueduct or a dam merely on the strength of his vision and charisma.

Davis longs for a creative solution. Let me suggest one. In Southern California we dump a river of fresh water into the ocean worth about 2 million acre-feet a year, in the form of waste water effluent ocean outfalls. This is a tremendous amount of good water, only a small fraction of which is currently reclaimed--for non-potable use.

Why not build the necessary additional treatment facilities to turn this river into potable water and put it back directly into the distribution system? The technology for producing reclaimed drinkable water--with a quality and reliability better than any naturally occurring water supply--is here, now. It simply mimics nature’s own hydrologic cycle, only faster and better. Impressive examples of successful potable water reclamation around the country already have demonstrated the feasibility and economy of this approach. What is lacking is the leadership of a Mulholland to convince the society that its moneys are better spent on potable water reclamation than flirting with ocean water desalination, towing icebergs and building undersea pipelines from Alaskan rivers.

BAHMAN SHEIKH, LOS ANGELES

I was interested to read in the Book Review section of The Los Angeles Times that William Mulholland’s feat of bringing water to Los Angeles allowed it to be the city it is today, by building L.A. in a desert where it wasn’t designed to be. The article went on to state that L.A. has outstripped the water supplies that Mulholland brought and implied that the future for growth was bleak. Yet, I also read in The Times that one day last winter during the winter floods that enough water ran into the ocean to supply L.A. for a year. This is an ancient problem that has an ancient solution.

The Nabateans in Jordan during Roman times had the land trenched so that the rain that occurred once a year all went into cisterns, supplying their needs then for the rest of the year with that one short season’s water. I submit that the next generation of macro-engineers could look at developing cisterns in the L.A. basin as the next public water system. Digging vast holes in L.A.’s natural drainage system does not seem like a high-tech solution and should be readily within the means of the city’s resources. This does not require any water import, just keeps the water we’ve got.

WILLIAM R. HALE, POMONA

In Geoffrey Cowan’s July 25 review of Margaret Leslie Davis’s “Rivers in the Desert” William Mulholland’s first visit to the Owens Valley was in September, 1904, leading to the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. “As an engineering project, it would be the second largest in American history--exceeded only by the Panama Canal, where construction work had begun a few months earlier.”

History tells us that the Panama Canal was begun in 1881 by a private company headed up by a Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, creator of the Suez Canal. After having excavated about half of the present canal, that company failed in 1889.

Then the United States government took over the work in 1904, completing it in 1914.

ALBERT J. DESROSIERS, LOS ANGELES

FANGS FOR THE MEMORY

In regard to Patt Morrison’s Article concerning the casting of Tom Cruise and Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat (Aug. 15): Morrison’s citing of “Gone With the Wind” was gratifyingly apt. Casting Cruise as Lestat--and bumping Brad Pitt over to play Louis--is as incomprehensible as having Clark Gable switch “Wind” roles with Leslie Howard!

LAURA S. KING, ANAHEIM

I had been working at Paramount Pictures on assignment in 1978 when they were trying to adapt the book “Interview with a Vampire” for film. It must have gone through 10 teams of writers and Anne Rice.

Finally, a movie would be made based on the first book of the Vampire Chronicles.

But, once again, Hollywood goes for the box office star potential instead of respecting the material. The casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat is just totally wrong. Cruise, the dark, brooding, passive actor that he is, is more in step with the role of black-haired Louis, who sits in his New Orleans lair.

Lestat has always been described as a long-haired blond who uses his lightness as part of his seductiveness. The appeal of Lestat is that Rice worked him against the proverbial stereotype and made him a flashy, ego-ridden blond. Hollywood has just turned one of literature’s most appealing and devastating characters into a stereotypical dark and sinister vampire.

I will not be seeing this film. I’ll keep my visions of Lestat and Louis and the others in my head where Anne Rice has put them through her incredible story-telling.

KEN DICKMAN, LOS ANGELES