At forty, Claire Fordham is at a crossroads. The divorced British mom has raised two mostly well-adjusted kids and worked as a journalist. But after a lifetime of looking after everyone else, she's ready to live a bit. So she says goodbye to England and moves to L.A. to live with her sister, respected songwriter Julia Fordham. Her first job is taking care of Julia's highly neurotic dog, Muttley, a "four-legged freak of nature" who, when he isn't destroying her shoes or mounting anything on legs, compulsively licks his anus. Welcome to Hollywood.
What follows is a year-long, laugh-out-loud story of a stranger in a very, very strange land. As Julia's "Plus One"—the nameless guest invited to openings and parties—Claire experiences life in the shadow of celebrity in a town where nothing is too surreal. From clairvoyants who get everything wrong, partygoers who are disappointed that Claire and Julia are sisters, not lesbians, Pink Witch parties, legendary icons in the garden, and people whose pets have their own lawyers on retainer to meeting Hollywood royalty, inventing fantasy boyfriends, playing roadie in exotic locales, falling for the wrong guys and possibly meeting the right man, Claire's on a rollercoaster ride in which no dream is too wild, no adventure too outrageous, and no information too personal to divulge over fashionable coffee. And in a town where anything can happen and usually does, Claire might just find everything she ever wanted. . .if she can survive it.
Candid, ribald, and sweetly optimistic, Plus One is a delicious tale of Tinseltown insanity and one woman's journey from Hollywood Nobody to somebody in her own right.
"Claire Fordham is the funniest writer on the planet. I'd have her assassinated but that would only increase the sales of her howlingly hilarious memoir, Plus One. She's the real-life Bridget Jones—only funnier, more beautiful, and with a baggie of dog shit in her hand."—Augusten Burroughs
"Plus One made me weep with laughter. I couldn't put it down and I didn't want it to end. By the time I reached the story about the lost condom, I was crying, and my ribs ached. Very few books have ever made me laugh this hard. A gem."—Haven Kimmel
