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Summary: In case you ever wondered how he got that way
Review: James Ellroy's unique voice in contemporary crime fiction springs from events in his own life which are the basis for My Dark Places. This book reveals a tortured early life overshadowed by the murder of Ellroy's mother and subsequent contact with police along with an adolescent descent into petty crime and drug use. That the person portrayed in these pages manages to sublimate his demons and channel them into some of the best noir fiction ever written, is a remarkable human achievement. Those who love Ellroy's books should read this memoir for the insight into the man it provides and, also, for the pleasure of reading a real life version of what could easily be a typical Ellroy subplot to an L.A. mystery. Really interesting stuff. Read this and you will know why Ellroy seems stuck in L.A. in another age - and why he can make it come to life with such power.
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Summary: Brutal honesty, complicated psychology and flawed genius.
Review: Both autobiography and biography, Ellroy narrates the account of his search for the truth behind his mother's murder in four parts. He begins with a cold journalistic account of the initial investigation that does not quite come off. In part two, he details a protracted adolescence that begins at age 9 when his mother is murdered and does not end until he is 30, in which his existence deteriorates into what call only be called depravity. The third part of the book delves into the life and career of real-life cop Bill Stoner and the beginning of the reinvestigation into the murder with Ellroy. The final part details his mother's life up until her murder, the outcome of the reinvestigation, the last murder case in the career of Stoner, and the trial of O.J. Simpson. This book is a must read for many reasons, but chiefly for its brutal honesty. Firstly, it is an unadulterated autobiographical account of the writer's complicated psychology and his descent into sexual perversion, drug addiction, alcoholism, and petty criminality. Rarely do we admit these to our close family and friends let alone an international audience and certainly not with the perceptiveness and brilliant narrative that Ellroy is capable of. Secondly, nobody knows the mind of cops like Ellroy. His are like no others described in fiction or fact, they are flawed geniuses that demand condemnation and sympathy simultaneously.
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Summary: A Style Like No Other...Haunting
Review: Well worth reading. Very interesting style of writing. Moving, effecting and haunting.
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Summary: A must for any "True Crime" addict!
Review: Now, I haven't actually read this book (yet)--I listened to the audiobook. But I have to say that it was one of the most incredible things I have ever heard. And to hear it from the man's own voice, wow. If there are any Ellroy fans out there who haven't heard it on the audiobook--I recommend it highly. There's just an extra dimension there.
I love the opening where we see the "forces of good" deployed. A woman's body is found, and the world reacts. A call goes out, men with badges appear and work their magic over the corpse. A web spreads, grasping for the events of the previous evening. The web moves on, dropping over her family and her past. Beautiful. It made me think: Now, this is a picture of what civilization has brought us--this web. It's unbelievable that a 10 year old boy survived that event and made sense of it.
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Summary: ...the best book I have read in 5 years...
Review: Honest, blunt, unflinching, searing, brutal, graphic, scary, and dark, this is Ellroy's premiere work. But really it's his magnum opus on what drives men to commit the heinious crime of murder. Forget what others have said about Ellroy's ego, his twisted persona, or his damaged psyche. If only everyone could be this honest. Sometimes you must not only measure a person by how much they have overcome, but how honestly they assess their own foibles and frailties. Yes, Ellroy is a rich and celebrated writer, but how many people in the world would freely admit a tenth of what he reveals in this book? Most people want to keep their skeletons very deep in their closets, thank you. Why expose yourself to the world -- too painful, right? The second chapter is a textbook example on how a writer should develop setting into a work. If I were teaching 10th graders the art of writing a setting into a book, I would use this as an example. It's going to be hard for Ellroy to ever top this, but as America's seminal writer currrently working in both fiction and non-fiction, he is capable of anything.
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Summary: Killer.
Review: This book floored me like a bottle of cheap whiskey, a fat joint, and a leggy blonde weaing a garter and stockings.
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Summary: An obsession too far?
Review: I love Ellroy's work and have read a lot of it over a relatively short space of time. His style is highly infectious, and carries a punch that makes many other novelists seem fay by comparison. The main interest of this book for me was where all that narrative style and drive came from (mainly reading lots of crime novels, it turns out). As a memoir it's troublesome. Excellent on childhood and adolescence, but ultimately tedious about the police work that obsesses the author and has inspired so much of his work. In fact, this latter aspect makes you wonder if you ever want to read another crime novel ever again. If that was Mr Ellroy's intention - to show us the prosaic reality - he's to be praised for his bravery. Maybe he's made enough money and is tired of the inevitable bull that comes with crime fiction 99% of the time. If not, he may be cutting his own throat... I guess we'll know the answer when we see what his next novel is about - assuming he writes one!
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Summary: As Great As Native Son
Review: This is the most brilliant and brutalizing read since Native Son. Entirely honest, absolutely absorbed in the jumble of rage,desire, pleasure, and abandonment feelings a son might feel toward a mother (and father) whose contradictions expose him to the extremes of survival. The legal detail is also wonderful. Where the desire for knowledge and for women meet, Ellroy leads us viscerally through neighborhoods we might not really want to go, places where we might already live...
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Summary: The real American Psycho!
Review: James Ellroy survived his childhood with his sanity intact, which is absolutely amazing. My Dark Places describes his coming of age after, at age 10, his mother is murdered. His subsequent life with his father is an extrordinary disappointment. And his turn to petty crime and drug abuse almost finishes him. Yet he pulls himself out to become a successful novelist, and later to journey back in time to try to find his mother's killer. What he is really searching for is not his mother's murderer, but his mother. He seems to need her now even more than when he was a boy. The pain is raw and the anger is vivid. I understand to some extent his desperate attempt to regain what was unjustly denied him by tragic circumstance. My mother is lost to me via Alzheimers disease. Although she is physically here, she is really as gone as Ellroy's mother. It's just agonizing to try to recapture what is gone. Full of regret and anger, confusion and frustration. I really hope Ellroy comes to terms eventually with his loss. The book is probably a good try in this direction. For any reader who is hoping for that illusive, imaginary balm of "closure", (a word which Ellroy rightly disparages) this book illustrates that the concept simply does not exist. The pain is always there. A tough read, but a memorable one.
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Summary: Riveting from beginning to end..
Review: I heard Ellroy interviewed on public radio when this book came out. I was fascinated then by his story. I didn't get his name just right and had trouble finding the book. While browsing recently in a book store I came across it, somehow placed in the wrong section. It was as good as his interview promised it would be. Having lived in California for over 20 years his descriptions of the LA scene and the lifestyle there ring true. I can't wait to read White Jazz and the rest of his books. Now I know why I left California.
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