The Flutter of an Eyelid

The Flutter of an Eyelid originally published in 1933 is a vicious and often quite funny satire of Southern Californias bohemian community in the 1920s by Jewish-American novelist Myron Brinig (1896-1991). Illustrated by Lynd Ward (1905-1985).Some of the novels characters are loosely based on prominent residents of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park an early center of film-making on the West Coast. These include the rare book dealer Jake Zeitlin (1902-1987) whose shop became a gathering place for local writers and artists and who introduced Brinig to his circle of friends; and the charismatic evangelist and media celebrity Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944).Zeitlin who was caricatured as a self-loathing Jewish antique dealer in the novel considered the book an insulting betrayal and after seeing an early set of galleys threatened to sue. He succeeded in having some of its more offensive anti-Semitic passages removed prior to its publication. Jewish himself Brinig was no anti-Semite; he and Zeitlin simply did not get along. One source reports that shortly after the book was released it was pulled from stores because of further legal threats from McPherson and some of the other individuals who were too thinly disguised in the novel.