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The Forest Dark
In 1984, during L.A.’s frenetic Summer Olympics, conservative co-ed Eden von Eiff befriends young gay man Noah Baldock and his boyfriend, Ronnie. Though they become fast friends, Eden feels like an inconvenient third wheel until she meets Ruben Acosta. Little does she know that Noah has also cast his eye on the handsome Cuban. After the wild summer, Eden’s pregnant and struggling to keep this secret from her politically powerful family back east when Noah offers a solution to her problem.
Twenty-five years later, these two Boomers must come to grips with choices they made long ago. Eden’s son Louie is now a social media star with his ambitions set on reality TV. Noah struggles with job loss and his odd “friend” Jivan, who holds a mysterious power over him. Eden regrets not being part of Louie’s early life and wants to change that, but finds mothering a 25-year-old a daunting challenge.
Thinking their troubles have mostly to do with middle age, the wrecked economy and professional failure, both Eden and Noah find themselves tested in ways they could not have predicted. In the process, they discover what it is that’s essential, and what it is that lasts.
Jim Arnold is the author of the award-winning novel Benediction. He lives in Los Angeles.
Twenty-five years later, these two Boomers must come to grips with choices they made long ago. Eden’s son Louie is now a social media star with his ambitions set on reality TV. Noah struggles with job loss and his odd “friend” Jivan, who holds a mysterious power over him. Eden regrets not being part of Louie’s early life and wants to change that, but finds mothering a 25-year-old a daunting challenge.
Thinking their troubles have mostly to do with middle age, the wrecked economy and professional failure, both Eden and Noah find themselves tested in ways they could not have predicted. In the process, they discover what it is that’s essential, and what it is that lasts.
Jim Arnold is the author of the award-winning novel Benediction. He lives in Los Angeles.
- GenresFiction
258 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 29, 2013
1 person is currently reading
560 people want to read
About the author
Jim Arnold
5 books39 followersJim is the author of the award-winning novels Benediction (2009). The Forest Dark (2013), Kept (2016) and Benefits (2019).
Jim also directed the critically-acclaimed documentary short Our Brothers, Our Sons, about generational differences around HIV/AIDS in gay men, (nominated for Best Documentary at the 2002 Turin International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival).
Jim has worked extensively as a free-lance journalist and has published in Frontiers, Variety, Prime Health & Fitness, Age Appropriate and other periodicals, online and in fiction anthologies. He began his career in musical theatre and holds a BA in journalism and film from Marquette University, and has studied film production/writing in the MFA program for Cinema/TV at the University of Southern California, the Writers Program at UCLA, and at Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco.
He blogs at www.jimarnoldblog.com/blog
Jim is a veteran entertainment and non-profits PR executive, having held communications management positions at Paramount Pictures, Dolby Laboratories and the American Lung Association in California.
Other Useful Information:
Jim’s a 4th Generation California Native whose ancestors came for the Gold Rush and stayed despite not finding any! He’s also a cancer survivor who has run a marathon and can literally do cartwheels. An unusual talent is that he can rollerblade backwards so don’t be shy about asking for a demo. A former teenage church organist, Jim now tries not to irritate his neighbors when playing standards from the American songbook on the piano.
Jim also directed the critically-acclaimed documentary short Our Brothers, Our Sons, about generational differences around HIV/AIDS in gay men, (nominated for Best Documentary at the 2002 Turin International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival).
Jim has worked extensively as a free-lance journalist and has published in Frontiers, Variety, Prime Health & Fitness, Age Appropriate and other periodicals, online and in fiction anthologies. He began his career in musical theatre and holds a BA in journalism and film from Marquette University, and has studied film production/writing in the MFA program for Cinema/TV at the University of Southern California, the Writers Program at UCLA, and at Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco.
He blogs at www.jimarnoldblog.com/blog
Jim is a veteran entertainment and non-profits PR executive, having held communications management positions at Paramount Pictures, Dolby Laboratories and the American Lung Association in California.
Other Useful Information:
Jim’s a 4th Generation California Native whose ancestors came for the Gold Rush and stayed despite not finding any! He’s also a cancer survivor who has run a marathon and can literally do cartwheels. An unusual talent is that he can rollerblade backwards so don’t be shy about asking for a demo. A former teenage church organist, Jim now tries not to irritate his neighbors when playing standards from the American songbook on the piano.
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March 24, 2026No
December 6, 2013
Arnold, Jim. “The Forest Dark”, CreateSpace, 2013.
Struggles and Tests
Amos Lassen
I first read Jim Arnold when I got his book “Benediction” and loved it but wondered why he had not written anything else only to have that answered when I received a copy of “The Forest Dark”. I was quickly reminded of why I thought so much of his writing. Arnold is a wonderful story teller and creates characters that are relatable and they experience situations that any of us could go through. Here we are taken back to 1984 to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. We first meet Eden von Eiff who becomes friendly with Noah Baldock and his boyfriend, Ronnie. Noah and Eden were total opposites—she was born into a class where grooming and proper etiquette come with the status. Noah was rough around the edges and sloppy in a casual sort of way. Eden was interning at Los Angeles public television thanks to her father and his ties and in repayment, she was expected to be the perfect daughter. However, she resented that he wanted to run for the vice-president of the country but she accepted his financial support. Noah, on the other hand, was the antithesis of conservatism—an openly gay male. It was Eden’s cosmopolitan outlook on life that attracted her to Noah even though she wished he was straight. Being a female, Eden began to feel like the third that makes a crowd but then she meets Ruben Acosta, a Cuban. What she did not know is that Noah also has eyeing Ruben and things really take off from there. Eden comes from a conservative family that is politically powerful so when she discovers that she is pregnant, she knows that her family will not take to her carrying the child of a non-American or even just being pregnant and not married. Noah has a solution for her. We then move forward twenty-five years and meet Eden and Noah again and they are now forced to deal with those choices they made back in 1984. Eden’s son Louis is now an adult and a social media star trying to break into reality television. Eden feels badly that she has not been part of her son’s life as he grew up and is now trying to change that but soon learns that it is hard to be a mother of someone who is already an adult.
Noah is now unemployed and not having an easy time with it and making it more difficult is Jivan, a strange friend, who seems to have a mysterious hold on him. It is not a good time for America with its crumbling economy and Noah and Eden are tested and learn that not everything is a necessity and what stands the test of time is what is important.
There is a tongue-in-cheek feel to Arnold’s writing that makes it such a fun read. There is so much that I could write about the plot but to do so would spoil a wonderful reading experience. This is about a family-of-choice. Twenty-five years after Noah and Eden decided what they would do about Eden’s pregnancy and now the two friends want to reconcile the past. They question whether what they are going through can be attributed to middle-age or the terrible American economy or whether they have just not made the right choices but now they face tests that they could never have dreamed of and in the process learn what is really important in life.
This is the relevance of the book and everyone should be able to identify with something in it. The choices we make determine how we live our lives and the results of those choices can show up anytime and anywhere. Is it possible to feel young when you age? Can we still enjoy what we did when we younger or do we have to pay a price to do so?
Jim Arnold seems to be taking his place as a writer of social issues. In “Benediction” he wrote of a gay man dealing with prostate cancer and in “The Forest Dark” he deals with living with the choices made during youth. He shows us that our past never dies and will come back to bite us in ways. There is a bit of a mystery here that I have not included in this review and there are politics that I have deliberately not written of. These are yours to deal with– I just do not want to spoil your fun and the chance to read a book by a terrific writer.
Struggles and Tests
Amos Lassen
I first read Jim Arnold when I got his book “Benediction” and loved it but wondered why he had not written anything else only to have that answered when I received a copy of “The Forest Dark”. I was quickly reminded of why I thought so much of his writing. Arnold is a wonderful story teller and creates characters that are relatable and they experience situations that any of us could go through. Here we are taken back to 1984 to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. We first meet Eden von Eiff who becomes friendly with Noah Baldock and his boyfriend, Ronnie. Noah and Eden were total opposites—she was born into a class where grooming and proper etiquette come with the status. Noah was rough around the edges and sloppy in a casual sort of way. Eden was interning at Los Angeles public television thanks to her father and his ties and in repayment, she was expected to be the perfect daughter. However, she resented that he wanted to run for the vice-president of the country but she accepted his financial support. Noah, on the other hand, was the antithesis of conservatism—an openly gay male. It was Eden’s cosmopolitan outlook on life that attracted her to Noah even though she wished he was straight. Being a female, Eden began to feel like the third that makes a crowd but then she meets Ruben Acosta, a Cuban. What she did not know is that Noah also has eyeing Ruben and things really take off from there. Eden comes from a conservative family that is politically powerful so when she discovers that she is pregnant, she knows that her family will not take to her carrying the child of a non-American or even just being pregnant and not married. Noah has a solution for her. We then move forward twenty-five years and meet Eden and Noah again and they are now forced to deal with those choices they made back in 1984. Eden’s son Louis is now an adult and a social media star trying to break into reality television. Eden feels badly that she has not been part of her son’s life as he grew up and is now trying to change that but soon learns that it is hard to be a mother of someone who is already an adult.
Noah is now unemployed and not having an easy time with it and making it more difficult is Jivan, a strange friend, who seems to have a mysterious hold on him. It is not a good time for America with its crumbling economy and Noah and Eden are tested and learn that not everything is a necessity and what stands the test of time is what is important.
There is a tongue-in-cheek feel to Arnold’s writing that makes it such a fun read. There is so much that I could write about the plot but to do so would spoil a wonderful reading experience. This is about a family-of-choice. Twenty-five years after Noah and Eden decided what they would do about Eden’s pregnancy and now the two friends want to reconcile the past. They question whether what they are going through can be attributed to middle-age or the terrible American economy or whether they have just not made the right choices but now they face tests that they could never have dreamed of and in the process learn what is really important in life.
This is the relevance of the book and everyone should be able to identify with something in it. The choices we make determine how we live our lives and the results of those choices can show up anytime and anywhere. Is it possible to feel young when you age? Can we still enjoy what we did when we younger or do we have to pay a price to do so?
Jim Arnold seems to be taking his place as a writer of social issues. In “Benediction” he wrote of a gay man dealing with prostate cancer and in “The Forest Dark” he deals with living with the choices made during youth. He shows us that our past never dies and will come back to bite us in ways. There is a bit of a mystery here that I have not included in this review and there are politics that I have deliberately not written of. These are yours to deal with– I just do not want to spoil your fun and the chance to read a book by a terrific writer.
December 28, 2013
I read this book for the Rainbow Awards.
This was not my kind of novel. Very weird story. Way too much drinking, non communication, screwing around and lack of honor. The characters never became sympathetic to me, I never felt inclined to even like them. It was as if they all had something weird that made them unpalatable even if they had started out to be someone of interest.
The story just kept greeting weirder and darker with each development.
One thing I did like was the authors ability to take me back to the LA of the '84 Olympics. I felt like I was back at that time in my life. His descriptions of places and times is spot on.
I felt the novel went many places but then just kind of ended with no real change and no conclusion.
This was not my kind of novel. Very weird story. Way too much drinking, non communication, screwing around and lack of honor. The characters never became sympathetic to me, I never felt inclined to even like them. It was as if they all had something weird that made them unpalatable even if they had started out to be someone of interest.
The story just kept greeting weirder and darker with each development.
One thing I did like was the authors ability to take me back to the LA of the '84 Olympics. I felt like I was back at that time in my life. His descriptions of places and times is spot on.
I felt the novel went many places but then just kind of ended with no real change and no conclusion.
January 19, 2015
very good book but kinda confusing at times
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews