‘Last Light’ and a New Year

Happy New Year! And boy, could we use one. These days have not been sunny, however the Montecito Journal is trying to brighten the path in 2026 by sharing with you a book we’ve fallen in love with. 

Last Light in Paradise is the first novel published by the Montecito Journal Media Group. Book publishing is not an easy business. It’s expensive and it’s hard, and we would not be jumping into that fray were it not for our discovery of a very special piece of literature.

I first read the manuscript for Last Light in Paradise, previously titled Creek, by Michael C. Armour, seven or eight years ago when my friend Brett Matthews handed it to me and said “this is a great book, you’ve got to read it.” Having worked in the movie business I’m used to people plunking books down on my desk in the hopes that I can “help get it made,” which of course, if I had such power, I would’ve had a lot more movies produced. But Brett’s passion and excitement won me over, so I read the manuscript, and he was right – it’s great. It captivated me from the first pages, delivering on so many levels. It’s a powerful love story. It’s fascinating vis-a-vis the history of Santa Barbara (including the genesis of the film industry in this town). It also delivers intrigue and mystery and social commentary. It’s cinematic and hypnotic and exciting. 

All these years later, after some fresh edits and a creative collaboration between the author and our C.O.O. Tim Buckley and Trent Watanabe, our talented artistic director, we finally had a worthy cover design, the right paper quality, and a title we all felt good about. Indeed, we are proud to share this special book with you, in serialized form – at least the first six chapters. Then you can buy the physical book. Or you can just buy the book straight away. Which we hope you will do because we think you will fall in love with it just as we did. 

At the Montecito Journal we are committed to supporting local bookstores by encouraging people to shop locally and engage with books and reading. That’s why we decided not to sell the book ourselves. Instead, we chose to have Chaucer’s handle e-sales for those outside the area, while local readers can purchase the book at Tecolote in Montecito, Chaucer’s in Santa Barbara, and Godmothers in Summerland. 

And now it’s my great honor to introduce you to Michael Armour, a celebrated painter, accomplished equestrian, and an award-winning author of children’s books. But perhaps Armour’s greatest talent is as a novelist – the thing at which he admittedly had to work the hardest. You judge for yourself.

Gwyn Lurie [GL]. Tell me about the history of this project. Because it certainly doesn’t start here.

Michael Armour [MA]. It’s been a long and painful process. It was so exciting because we sold it so quickly to Leonardo DiCaprio.

GL. This is what year?

MA. Don’t remember exactly. It was 10, 15 years ago, somewhere in there. I try not to remember the years. I knew this was a great book for him. I suppose all authors trust in their work. I didn’t, but I knew it was a good story, and I knew I loved the character and I love movies. And I cleaned it up and I sold it for a lot of money; so we thought, “Yeah, it’s a done deal.” And it turned out it wasn’t. And the director that was going to direct it, this is going to slam, but he went on to choose three different stories to work on. So, it was very disappointing. But the greatest thing was it got the top editor in the world (now at Scribner) and his team saying things any writer in the world would want to hear. “There’s a kind of genius to this writer…” “I haven’t seen a character that I like more than this since Lonesome Dove.” I mean, it just went on and on.

GL. When you started writing this story, were you thinking, “I want to write a book that could be a movie?”

MA. I always think about movies. I was in the film business for a long time as a documentary maker and an advertising film guy in Alaska and Seattle, and worked for the big ad agencies in New York. And it took years to finally get out of all that stuff and begin the work I felt most deeply about. 

GL. Have you always wanted to be a writer?

MA. I started wanting to write as a child early on. All the factors that play into that are fascinating to me, like where the hell does this desire come from? And it comes from grandmothers and mothers and early books I loved deeply. The problem is I was really slow and stupid with words, and I had serious dyslexia. Years later I remember reading Keats in boarding school and was just stunned anyone could write so beautifully, move me so deeply, beyond mere story. It added to the fire of wanting to make a world from mere words. 

GL. I don’t know that you can put those two sentences together. I was “really stupid” and “I remember reading Keats.”

MA. Well, I had a lot of learning challenges. I was a born artist, so I take little credit for that, but the writing has been this hard journey. It’s just been blood, sweat, and tears for a lot of years. And something happened, and it has to do, I believe, with humility. For me it has to do with what Joseph Campbell saw as yielding. And so I believe writers who become too vain about their work miss a deeper part of the souls of their characters that is a waste to me. But a deeper insight to characters ennobles a reader, or moves them to a deeper truth.

The difference to me between writers and the other arts is if I go into talking about the sea, which my next book is hugely about, (and Padaro Lane), you don’t just go into the ocean and say, “Wow, it’s really beautiful, and blue and big,” and walk away from it. You’re transformed by it because something allowed you to feel it deeply enough in all its values to find a place in a reader’s heart and imagination.

And then it’s a question of the greater mysteries. Why? Why do fish not breathe air? Why does this person I’m writing about mean so much to me, enough to share this with another soul? What do they all bring to the world that’s worth spending years writing about? Keats was the guy that I read in boarding school and actually the professor thought I cheated because it was such a good essay and I had to go back a year because I’ve had trouble with words all my life – when the truth was I was so taken with the work that an innocence pushed through. So I persisted at writing. I tried to write like my favorite novelists but it wouldn’t happen. And then there was a period where life changed. Age brought a little willingness and I learned how to find what I had experienced, and weave it honestly into the parts that wrote themselves. I was a bit of a delinquent when I was young, and lost. And then I found something called substance. I had failed for so long yet persisted, and one day I knew all the pieces of the world I loved that I could not shape or define or honor began to appear, and I knew they were more than merely dramatic – they were true. And all I cared most deeply about – and loved or disliked about people – began to appear, and stick, because I knew it was true.  

GL. You grew up in Santa Barbara?

MA. Yeah, we grew up on Padaro Lane. Try to explain that to people and it’s like $24 a month for the shack we lived in; and the ocean, ferocious, 40 feet out in front of you. So it’s paradise. All my brothers and sister and I mourn it.

GL. How did that beginning inform this story?

MA. I was a mystic as a kid. I had a faith that was absurd. If I talked to God or the Gods or whatever the hell is up there, stuff came true. If I wanted to see this girl or meet this girl or have a date with this girl in second grade, I would meet her. If I want to play on the football team, it would happen. So it was a strange faith that was innocent because when you’re like that, you don’t know that that’s unusual. And everything about the ocean is so overwhelming, everything about that area is so overwhelming. So, childhood was very magical until it broke up, until it all fell apart and we all went east.

We had a different life and we had a wonderful new stepfather that kind of lifted us up and said, “Look over the wall. There’s a big world there and if you want to be in it, you’re going to have to work and learn how to study and not get in trouble with the police, etc.” So, life changed. And then there was the opportunity to learn, the mechanics and the language and the grammar. And there were a couple people that were just immensely influential in my life who helped me pay attention to grammar. I’ve never been able to spell. It’s kind of hilarious.

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You will remember this novel – its hero and characters and scenes – for a long time. A big-hearted story of desperation and courage, crime and redemption, love and loss – it is as entertaining as it is moving.

Fannie Flagg, Author of Fried Green Tomatoes

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GL. Were you dyslexic? 

MA. Quite. And none of that stuff is important except, depending on the hunger, we all find ways to get around these things, short, tall, skinny, all these things. And I had a lot of help with that stepfather, and I had the great gift of a grandmother and my mother and literature and Bill Watling, who was one of the original owners of Tecolote. He gave me my first book, and it was Western, and it was poetry, and it was called Sun and Saddle Leather. And to this day, I can remember the poems. I can remember the words. And that stuff ignites in your head. My grandmother gave me the early fairy tales. And I think when you’re a child, especially, and nothing’s referential, it’s just all brand new, and so you don’t judge it. And you leave the earth when you find stories that are magnificent and characters that are magnificent. And then boarding school began with The Once and Future King. To find out you could read a book that is beyond brilliant and big and thick and laugh out loud, in study hall! This serious heavy-duty book. Same with Queequeg, [in Moby Dick] jumping into bed. So literature has been a very, very important part of my life. I just never thought I’d be able to work hard enough and get lucky enough to create any of it.

GL. Your artistic endeavors have consisted of a lot of different chapters, right?

MA. They have, but look, if I make a documentary, like the one I get awards for, you win stuff for those things and you get the people who call up, the mayor calls up and he says, “God, this is an unbelievable documentary. It’s wonderful.” And it’s like, great. So I make a documentary and it’s like, “Okay, you know the business.” So you assemble everything, you get it together, you get the casting, you get this, and then you try to go as deep as you can to pull out what you need. 

The thing about writing to me is there’s an integrity to it. And I’ve done two dozen blue-collar jobs. But when you find something that truly matters to you, it’s like you’ll give up everything in the world to do that. And writing is just so different than all the other stuff because if I was trying to write with any integrity or beauty – its demand was bigger than all those things to me. Way bigger than my Emmy win. I did not possess the skills it takes to make movies, no matter how much I loved them. I fell in love with books. I wound up meeting Tom McGuane and his tribe of writers in Livingston, Montana, and it was over. Everything else was over. And then it took 10 to 20 years to learn how to write with skill and integrity and heart.

GL. So, you grew up in Santa Barbara, on Padaro.

MA. Then we went east into the snow.

GL. At the sea, then you went east. But your early years were here. And you talk about the things you love and the things you care about, like horses, and the ballet, Balanchine, racism, the struggle of Indigenous people, depression, economic disparity, and films… it’s all in this book, right?

MA. Well, there’s a man that wants to honor a maligned nobody, which I love. To me, that’s what the book is. Creek’s integrity – I mean, he goes through everything you got to go through to honor a cripple who he loved. And I love that, and I love that it’s difficult and deeply costly for him, and was for me. But there’s a theme in there, which is this language that cares about the least among us. It’s so funny because nobody on earth hates fascism more than me. And we’re in that period in the world kind of. And the idea of the least among us and caring about the least among us is not only noble, it’s not only Christian, Jewish, Islamic etc., it’s kind of in the deepest roots of most good religions, and it’s above all implicit in our souls. Look at children. 

I’m not a great fan of the human race. I’m not a great fan of the concept of evolution and what we are and what we come from, but there is this odd possibility of being decent and kind and noble, stuff like that. And it’s in this book because that matters to me, and I’ve lived a lot of that. I was an equestrian. Do you know Owen Cathcart, do you know who he was when he was here? He was England’s greatest pilot, quite literally, and came over here and he ran the polo club and stuff.

I was a little kid, and I went over and said, “I can ride your horse.” He said, “That’s a lot of pluck.” And I said, “No, I can ride your horse.” So he gave me Mona Mi, who’s the finest horse I’ve ever experienced that wasn’t a quarter horse. And I knew how to ride it. And it’s kind of like the art. I knew how to do the painting, and it pleases me. I think that the gift is the people that push you a little bit. Cathcart, Bill Russel, Art Larkin, Mother Teresa, Thoreau, Herman Melville – they all taught me excellence. I had a gorgeous horse, but I was born to love a horse. I had sports, but I was granted an education that brought me to the Celtics and College. There are influences, but it is just releasing what is just in us. I knew what to do. But where does that come from? Writing is hard work; but in the soul of what you’re writing about, eventually you begin to write something that matters, something that touches the heart, something, God forbid, that changes prejudice. 

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Last Light in Paradise is a savory read set in the dreamscape of 1934 Santa Barbara. Still reeling from the Great Depression, a burgeoning moviemaking empire has triggered hope, jobs, and greed. An irresistible protagonist named Creek unspools Armour’s crime story. Whip-sharp and easy on the eye, Creek leans into the seemingly accidental drowning death of a friend. Armour’s whodunit is a love story, a mystery, and a redemption tale. It’s edgy, seductive, and fun. Read it.

A.L. Bardach, PEN Award winning journalist& author of Cuba Confidential and Without Fidel

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GL. I would say human dignity and truth, right? That we all deserve, every human being deserves their story to be told in a truthful way, right?

MA. Yeah, that’s good.

GL. Even discovering the truth about Pony’s life, but also his death. Which is a part of his story.

MA. A guy that shows up without a head on the beach below a mansion…

GL. Is it Bellosguardo that you’re talking about? And that’s where Ranny, the reclusive ballerina lives.

MA. And she’s damaged, and we don’t know why for a long time, but she’s brave and beautiful. What is that line? Oh, Rilke. “…perhaps all of our demons are dragons who only once want us to be beautiful and brave, to help everything that’s helpless, that wants help from us.” Kind of cool.

GL. Okay. So this is the first novel that the Montecito Journal has ever published because we really believe in it, so much so that we optioned the rights to it because not only is this a seriously good book and a really fun read, but this could not be a more Santa Barbara story. What do you hope for?

MA. Well, the first thing is, I really appreciate you driving this, big time… This is a rich town, rich in stuff, rich with writers, not all just wealthy people. And I would love to see you move forward with this and become a publishing entity in the world. And then what I would love is for this to all unfold with the integrity, as a movie with the right casting. Creek’s a wonderful character. And I think Ranny’s wonderful. I mean, she’s so vulnerable and I fell in love with her. I mean, I fall in love with these people. I have so little sense of authorship. Literally, it’s like I can look at it and go, “God, look what just happened.” 

I would love to see people fall in love with the book. It’s not Dostoevsky. It’s not in the high airy sky and clouds of great literature, but it’s a hell of a fun book. And I think it has integrity in it. And if you fall in love with the characters, you fall in love with character. I mean, I don’t think there’s a more interesting person on the planet than the lawyer in this thing, Chumsky and his wife. I mean, I don’t know anybody funnier and sweeter and more irascible than that guy and his wife. Skinny little thing coming out here and saying, “Stop. He’s a wonderful man. Serve him.” I love characters and I’ve loved them all my life, but I do fall in love with nearly all of them.

And I would love to see Creek honored by somebody that isn’t like the prior director that wasted it for 10 years. Somebody who really understands what can happen once it becomes a movie. I don’t know what’ll happen as a novel, because I’m so close to that. But movies, I’m never, ever wrong. I’m telling you, it’s uncanny. I can tell where a movie’s going to go within 20 minutes of the movie. I can tell the depth, the integrity, and I’m almost never wrong. If the right director gets this, if the right writer understands it, and if the right … There’s only about six or ten actors I would believe as Creek, his way of barely hiding heartbreak, and then everybody else is gravy, it’ll be enormous. It’ll be a big, good movie.

The thing that feels so rewarding is, it’s genuine. It’s not bullshit. It’s not to impress. It emanates out of the characters and out of the story. And I suppose stories are given to you too. And our part is to sweat blood for a few years to make them honest and beautiful. I mean, we can have an idea and you want to execute the idea and you want a structure and a plot. But I believe it’s true. Vonnegut would, as funny as he was, agree with that. And I think it’s important to honor it. Because as a writer, you struggle…. And this is interesting to me. We honor many writers. But it’s not so easy. I mean, sometimes they get stabbed almost to death for writing, say, the Satanic Verses… 

And on that note, please enjoy Last Light in Paradise as much as we have…