“A writer’s vivid recollection of an age when every day could be a dream.” Kirkus ReviewsFrom humble beginnings in a fractured family, Aram Saroyan, author of the most controversial one-word poem in history, charts an unforgettable journey through art, fame, and the 20th-century bohemian counterculture.Before I Forget: A Memoir (and Then Some) is a powerful literary memoir from poet Aram Saroyan, son of William Saroyan, reflecting on a life shaped by art, fame, and fractured family. Includes rare photos, stories, and a behind-the-scenes view of American cultural and bohemian life from the 1950s onward.In Before I Forget, Saroyan remembers his beginnings in Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, and Bolinas. The son of the beloved author William Saroyan and step-son of Walter Matthau, he probes the fallout of his father and mother’s broken marriage and lessons gleaned in their wake.Saroyan paints a series of scenarios that impacted his life: An eight-year-old is cast out on the comic sea of Beverly Hills in the fifties. A young man encounters fame working with photographer Richard Avedon and a revolving list of models including Marilyn Monroe. A journey to nurture his own authentic, original literary voice finds love and support when least-expected, balancing the prickle of critical controversy. Here is a multi-faceted artist’s valedictory. Includes 20 rare photos from the author’s personal archive and two narrative novellas that frame Saroyan’s life in literature with imaginative reflections and sharp emotional insight.

Michael Shepard, a detective with his own set of problems, is hired one morning by a fashionable young woman at her Hollywood apartment. Soon he’s embroiled in a murder investigation that may shed light on a nearly forgotten tragedy. A divorced father wondering how to set his son on a better course in life, the detective gets into deepening trouble as he negotiates a vivid panorama of the town’s modern-day beautiful and damned. Author Aram Saroyan harnesses the hardboiled styles of Chandler, Hammett, and Ross MacDonald into a contemporary tale of information age intrigue. The text is supplemented with cell phone photos taken by Saroyan in the same environs in which the story unfolds.

"Friends in the World reminds us how much we need each other to truly be ourselves."--L.A. Reader¶". . . a thoughtful self-depiction of a budding writer of the sixties as well as sympathetic portraits of fellow literary figures such as Ted Berrigan, Allen Ginsberg, and Tom Clark."--Library Journal

“A writer’s vivid recollection of an age when every day could be a dream.” Kirkus ReviewsFrom humble beginnings in a fractured family, Aram Saroyan, author of the most controversial one-word poem in history, charts an unforgettable journey through art, fame, and the 20th-century bohemian counterculture.Before I Forget: A Memoir (and Then Some) is a powerful literary memoir from poet Aram Saroyan, son of William Saroyan, reflecting on a life shaped by art, fame, and fractured family. Includes rare photos, stories, and a behind-the-scenes view of American cultural and bohemian life from the 1950s onward.In Before I Forget, Saroyan remembers his beginnings in Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, and Bolinas. The son of the beloved author William Saroyan and step-son of Walter Matthau, he probes the fallout of his father and mother’s broken marriage and lessons gleaned in their wake.Saroyan paints a series of scenarios that impacted his life: An eight-year-old is cast out on the comic sea of Beverly Hills in the fifties. A young man encounters fame working with photographer Richard Avedon and a revolving list of models including Marilyn Monroe. A journey to nurture his own authentic, original literary voice finds love and support when least-expected, balancing the prickle of critical controversy. Here is a multi-faceted artist’s valedictory. Includes 20 rare photos from the author’s personal archive and two narrative novellas that frame Saroyan’s life in literature with imaginative reflections and sharp emotional insight.

Michael Shepard, a detective with his own set of problems, is hired one morning by a fashionable young woman at her Hollywood apartment. Soon he’s embroiled in a murder investigation that may shed light on a nearly forgotten tragedy. A divorced father wondering how to set his son on a better course in life, the detective gets into deepening trouble as he negotiates a vivid panorama of the town’s modern-day beautiful and damned. Author Aram Saroyan harnesses the hardboiled styles of Chandler, Hammett, and Ross MacDonald into a contemporary tale of information age intrigue. The text is supplemented with cell phone photos taken by Saroyan in the same environs in which the story unfolds.

"Friends in the World reminds us how much we need each other to truly be ourselves."--L.A. Reader¶". . . a thoughtful self-depiction of a budding writer of the sixties as well as sympathetic portraits of fellow literary figures such as Ted Berrigan, Allen Ginsberg, and Tom Clark."--Library Journal