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James Ellroy is my favourite author who admits to wanting to shag his mum, and who also became obsessed with true crime after the mum he lusted after was murdered. This combination of issues led him to eventually write the L.A. Quartet, which are the following 4 books: - Black Dahlia - The Big Nowehere - L.A Confidential - White Jazz All of these are pretty much noir detective novels that blend in real life characters and events from the 1940s to 1960s into a fictional overarching story (usually involving brutal and gross murders, again usually of women for some reason). These are my go to books to read when I don't want to read something new and just want to enjoy a good complicated story. It has one of the best book villains of all time, and also is the basis for the Oscar winning movie L.A. Confidential (which is what got me wanting to read the books in the first place). He also wrote the Underworld USA triology of books, which kindof follow on from the L.A. Quartet but are less noir detective and more mob/criminal conspiracy books set in the 1960s onwards. The way they are written is quite difficult to follow in places and, although I've read these a couple of times, I'm too dumb to understand everything that's happening in them. I partially blame that but usually straight after re-reading the L.A. Quartet and am already burnt out after reading hundreds of thousands of words about crimes in the USA. Anyone else like to talk about the L.A Quartet/Underworld USA trilogy? We can also talk about how James Ellroy is either a full right-wing nut job, or just pretends to be to wind people up. I also wanted to ask if anyone had any recomenndations for similar modern authors who write complicated crime books.
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Apr 1, 2023 19:36
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An English teacher in my HS managed to get Ellroy to speak to his class and I sat in on it. At some point he was asked about the feud he had with [some other crime writer] and the response was: "That's like getting my led-humped by a half-blind syphilitic Chihuahua"
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Apr 2, 2023 00:25
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I used to be big into Ellroy and while I haven't read his stuff for probably 7 years at this point I still think quite highly of the Underworld USA trilogy and the LA Quartet. He's definitely a writer with a lot of hangups and obsessions and a kind of inscrutable political outlook but it shakes out into really compelling fiction, even when he's doing experimental 'no-sentence-longer-than-seven-words' stuff in The Cold Six Thousand. I am not convinced at all that he's some kind of right-wing nutjob (anymore, anyway; he may well have been a nazi in his youth as he says, although I remember thinking that he was mostly saying that stuff to troll interviewers). Granted, my main evidence to the contrary is that the Underworld USA trilogy resolves with every surviving character who's been a cop or a spy or an assassin or a bagman for the mob finding some measure of redemption by either becoming a communist or aligning with black rights, although also by finding A Good Woman, because his hangups are in evidence to the end. Although that trilogy also has quite a lot of contempt for the Black Panthers, so as I said, inscrutable.
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Apr 2, 2023 10:41
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I've read the two books from his prequel quartet that have come out. The storylines seem intricate and twisty while in the moment, but a lot of them suffer from the prequel problem of having to end up going nowhere because of the status quo from the rest of the series that has to be set up. Still the quality of writing is really strong and I want to see where he's going with the reveal that Elizabeth Short is Dudley Smith's daughter.
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Apr 2, 2023 13:40
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FilthyImp posted:An English teacher in my HS managed to get Ellroy to speak to his class and I sat in on it. At some point he was asked about the feud he had with [some other crime writer] and the response was: That owns. John Charity Spring posted:I used to be big into Ellroy and while I haven't read his stuff for probably 7 years at this point I still think quite highly of the Underworld USA trilogy and the LA Quartet. He's definitely a writer with a lot of hangups and obsessions and a kind of inscrutable political outlook but it shakes out into really compelling fiction, even when he's doing experimental 'no-sentence-longer-than-seven-words' stuff in The Cold Six Thousand. I am not convinced at all that he's some kind of right-wing nutjob (anymore, anyway; he may well have been a nazi in his youth as he says, although I remember thinking that he was mostly saying that stuff to troll interviewers). Granted, my main evidence to the contrary is that the Underworld USA trilogy resolves with every surviving character who's been a cop or a spy or an assassin or a bagman for the mob finding some measure of redemption by either becoming a communist or aligning with black rights, although also by finding A Good Woman, because his hangups are in evidence to the end. Although that trilogy also has quite a lot of contempt for the Black Panthers, so as I said, inscrutable. Yeah, it seems weird to me if he was a nut-job that he would write an LA police force who are thoroughly corrupt and successfully solve zero crimes without railroading at some innocent people along the way. Glad that it's not clear for anyone else though. The Lobotomy Kid posted:I've read the two books from his prequel quartet that have come out. The storylines seem intricate and twisty while in the moment, but a lot of them suffer from the prequel problem of having to end up going nowhere because of the status quo from the rest of the series that has to be set up. Still the quality of writing is really strong and I want to see where he's going with the reveal that Elizabeth Short is Dudley Smith's daughter. I haven't read the prequals yet because I thought Perfidia got middling reviews. I hovered over that spoiler like a moron though, so reading that has made me want to get up to speed 
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Apr 3, 2023 15:09
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American Tabloid is one of my favorite books. I love it as much as Pete Boundarant loves snapping handcuffs bare handed. I don't know if calling Ellroy if right wing is the best way to describe him, but he is definitely reactionary and has just kind of a baseline cynicism of people in general. I do think he tends to right lefties, commies, etc as sympathetic, and he has an absolutely genuine hatred for American power structures. I think White Jazz is his stylistic high point.
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Apr 3, 2023 17:36
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I kind of enjoyed the middle part of My Dark Places where it's just Ellroy talking about all the various ways to get hosed up on a budget. Lots of unexamined pain and grief being processed by chewing on inhalers and poo poo.
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Apr 8, 2023 07:17
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I want to see the actual size of LA Confidential if it exists in a world where the publisher didn't make him take out every other word in a sentence.
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Apr 9, 2023 06:23
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Posting in this thread and reading the cool replies has made me decide to finally get around to reading everything Ellroy has put out. I've bought Confidential, and I'm going to read that after finishing White Jazz. Then I'll go through the L.A. Quarter II books for the first time, then Underworld USA, then his biography. I need to know how to get hosed up cheaply due to inflation.
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Apr 9, 2023 21:37
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I bought the hardcover reissued special editions of the Underworld USA trilogy and they are dope as hell. I spend a lot of time thinking about how badly Hollywood would gently caress up casting Pete Bondurant in a movie version. Also, "He used to pimp and pull shakedowns. Now he rode shotgun to history." is one of my favorite lines ever from any book. I remember being completely blown away the first time I read American Tabloid. It was so....I dunno, visceral is the word that comes to mind. I also had fun looking up the historical events mentioned in the book and finding out that a lot of that poo poo actually happened. haljordan fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Apr 14, 2023 |
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Apr 14, 2023 21:22
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it's insanely heightened and obviously plays fast and loose with actual events, but it is spiritually nonfictional
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Apr 14, 2023 21:47
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BrownPepper posted:it's insanely heightened and obviously plays fast and loose with actual events, but it is spiritually nonfictional Oh yeah he takes a lot of liberties at times but I specifically remember the part about the French police straight up beating a shitload of Algerians to death and that 100% happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961
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Apr 14, 2023 21:48
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it blew my mind when I realized that Chuck Rodgers was a real guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rogers_(murder_suspect)
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Apr 14, 2023 21:58
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BrownPepper posted:it blew my mind when I realized that Chuck Rodgers was a real guy And he really was a petroleum geologist lol
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Apr 14, 2023 22:00
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BrownPepper posted:it's insanely heightened and obviously plays fast and loose with actual events, but it is spiritually nonfictional The mass chainsaw execution during the bay of pigs or Jack Ruby loving dogs are inspired.
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Apr 14, 2023 23:32
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Another exchange from American Tabloid that I really, really love for some reason
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Apr 14, 2023 23:45
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The Lobotomy Kid posted:The mass chainsaw execution during the bay of pigs or Jack Ruby loving dogs are inspired. Jack Ruby, Dog-Fucker is one of those things that I refuse to believe isn't real. also the KKK training the Bay of Pigs invaders isn't real but it feels like it should be
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Apr 21, 2023 09:43
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John Charity Spring posted:Jack Ruby, Dog-Fucker is one of those things that I refuse to believe isn't real. I also like to believe that Jimmy Hoffa went fishing for sharks and used a baseball bat with barbed wire wrapped around it to whack 'em.
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Apr 21, 2023 14:30
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Oh, not only did I forget that the sequel to Perfidia exists but I bought it and didn’t read it yet. And a new book too. I loved, LOVED, everything he did but started losing interest after American Tabloid wrapped up. A lot of this I suspect my own interest in noir, and horror waining. Something about the world now giving the kind of chills I used to get from fiction, and being a lot less fun. Also watching that show he did with the animated dog definitely had an effect. I think it removed the scumbag mystique from his writing and made me revisit my wife’s opinion that he’s trying a little too hard.
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Apr 27, 2023 05:07
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Never picked up any Ellroy, but I loved the movie LA Confidential, and the excerpts I've read as a result of this thread make me think I should change that.Remulak posted:that show he did with the animated dog ...but I really want to know more about this.
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Apr 27, 2023 16:56
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I’m reading White Jazz right now but I’m really thrown off by the writing style. I don’t remember his other books being written like this but it has been a while since I’ve read his other books.
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May 1, 2023 03:06
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AFewBricksShy posted:I’m reading White Jazz right now but I’m really thrown off by the writing style. I don’t remember his other books being written like this but it has been a while since I’ve read his other books. It is definitely more striped down and stylized than the preceding books. I think White Jazz is basically the platonic ideal of Ellroy's style. But I think it works because it's a focused narrative with just one point of view character. Cold Six-thousand brings back that same brutally sparse prose, which I don't think works well in a decade spanning epic with multiple point of view characters.
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May 3, 2023 03:09
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One of the fascinating things about Ellroy is that at age 44, and having been successfully writing crime novels in a fairly conventional prose style for over a decade, with White Jazz he suddenly goes full modernist.
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May 5, 2023 10:54
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Ellroy just announced a new novel:quote:A new novel from James Ellroy is coming this September
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Jul 7, 2023 19:37
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The Enchanters came out this week. I'm picking up my reserved copy from the library this weekend.
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Sep 14, 2023 02:10
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