Every time I've finished an Ellroy book, I've had to sit back and process everything, climb up out of his world, shake my brain free of his expert graEvery time I've finished an Ellroy book, I've had to sit back and process everything, climb up out of his world, shake my brain free of his expert grasp. With White Jazz, he concludes his epic "L.A. Quartet," by narrowing his focus even more so than in The Black Dahlia, and miles away from the gargantuan L.A. Confidential. Returning to first-person narration and a single protagonist, Ellroy presents a portrait of racist and corrupt police lieutenant Dave Klein, who finds himself a pawn in a law enforcement political war when a Federal attorney mounts an investigation into LAPD malfeasance and its involvement in Southland vice.
Klein is a fascinating character, because he's not some hero or your everyday good guy caught up in a conspiracy and must be the one to bring it all to light. Instead he's a full-time criminal/part-time cop who finds himself in over his head, involved with individuals and systems that are even more corrupt than he is, and must fight through the entire book just to keep his head above water. And it was cool to witness as some semblance of justice (maybe goodness) starts to seep in to his motivations, once he gets a little love in his life and is forced to confront his actions in the past.
Style-wise, Ellroy takes the trimmed and slashed prose style he adopted for L.A. Confidential (by cutting out unnecessary words to cut the manuscript down by 100 pages per his editor) and ratchets it up to a thousand here! Paired with yet another complex plot, the clipped style makes White Jazz a very challenging read, as it's hard at times to follow, as major plot developments and twists can occur in just several well-chosen words, and if you blink (or skim), you miss it. It's not a casual read. But once I got settled in and used to it, I was along for the ride. And I began to realize how much this jazzy, bebop prose fits the confessional, stream-of-consciousness style that's used in the book. It's Dave Klein truly telling his story in his own words. And at times, it can be really poetic in it's own way. Here's what Ellroy himself had to say about his choice to continue the use of this technique for Klein in a Paris Review interview:
"I saw that if I eliminated words from his speech, I would develop a more convincing cadence for him: paranoid, jagged, enervated..."
This book, it's content, and it's writing style, as with most of Ellroy's work, definitely won't be to everyone's taste, and I would suggest that people new to Ellroy not start with this one (probably start with the more accessible Dahlia). For a taste of what's in store in the book, here's a portion of the novel where Klein searches police records for a possible suspect:
Keyed up—glom the pervert file. Dog stuff/B&E/Peeping Tom, see what jumped: A German Shepherd-fucking Marine. Doctor "Dog": popped for shooting his daughter up with beagle pus. Dog killers—none fit my man's specs. Dog fuckers, dog suckers, dog beaters, dog worshipers, a geek who chopped his wife while dressed up as Pluto. Panty sniffers, sink shitters, masturbators—lingerie jackoffs only. Faggot burglars, transvestite break-ins, "Rita Hayworth"–Gilda gown, dyed bush hair, caught blowing a chloroformed toddler. The right age—but a jocker cut his dick off, he killed himself, a full-drag San Quentin burial. Peepers: windows, skylights, roofs—the roof clowns a chink brother act. No watchdog choppers, the geeks read passive, caught holding their puds with a whimper. Darryl Wishnick, a cute MO: peep, break, enter, rape, watchdogs subdued by goofball-laced meat—too bad he kicked from syph in '56. One flash: peepers played passive, my guy killed badass canines.
Although the style is more challenging than the previous books, making for a less smooth a read as I wanted, this novel is still an incredibly engaging crime saga, and skillfully ties in the events in the earlier novels, bringing the entire Quartet to a close in satisfying fashion (Ellroy's most poignant ending since Dahlia)! Ellroy and his work continues to fascinate me and he just climbed even higher in the ranks of my favorite authors.
To eclipse my guilt with the sheer weight of his evil. I'm going to kill him in the name of our victims, find Glenda and say:
"You never know when you might rub shoulders with history."
Well here it is, the book that ends my 5-star streak with James Ellr*3.5 Stars*
"You never know when you might rub shoulders with history."
Well here it is, the book that ends my 5-star streak with James Ellroy's books. But it's definitely not a bad book, just not as impressively crafted as the others and much more difficult to read.
John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, all assassinated within five years, all by lone gunmen who all claimed to not be the only ones involved. Coincidence? James Ellroy thinks not, and just as in the stellar American Tabloid, he deconstructs the turbulent 1960's and rewrites his own version of American history during that time, leading up to the deaths of RFK and MLK. Picking up immediately after the JFK assassination at the end of Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand follows our characters cleaning up after the killing that has shaken the country to its core and they struggle to define their roles in the history being made. Pete Bondurant dedicates himself to staying useful and to mending his fraying relationship to the Mob and the CIA, dreaming of rekindling his Anti-Communist glory days that led up to the Cuban crisis, while Ward Littell uses all the skills he's learned from Kemper Boyd, dangerously juggling alliances with everyone from the Mob, Howard Hughes, the FBI, and the Civil Rights movement, and at the same time feeling increasing guilt with his role in a rising number of conspiracies. Debuting into this mess is Wayne Tedrow Jr., a Las Vegas cop struggling to avoid following in his racist father's footsteps, but tragic circumstances allow him to embrace the darkness within. And looming over everything is J. Edgar Hoover, the Emperor Palpatine of the Ellroy galaxy, increasingly unhinged, crafting conspiracies from behind a desk, wire-tapping every room in the country, struggling to make the country great again.
One of the things that made me fall in love with Ellroy's work is his ability to pull together an immense encyclopedia of material and, through the use of some black magic, craft these tight tales and characters that are engaging and fully memorable. And though his past five masterpieces that I've read haven't been short, this is the first of his work that I actually think is too long. And Ellroy takes his prose-style to the extreme here and that doesn't help. It's exhausting and many times tedious, and there are whole parts that I don't think were all that necessary; the Vietnam storyline in particular didn't really amount to much or affect much of anything. I wish that Ellroy spent less time on that and more time really fleshing out the character arcs, which weren't as finely tuned as in his previous novels. I wanted to feel the conflict in Ward Littell more as he feels the pull of the Left even though he tries so hard to be part of the Right. His story could've been the most fascinating. I wanted to further explore Wayne Junior's acceptance and rationalization of his racism. While all of these ideas were great, I just wish they were fleshed out more.
But the book is still an Ellroy book and like most of his work, it's an epic that stands out in a crowded field of fiction. There are times when the declarative sentence style really shines, as in a chapter where Littell witnesses firsthand the horrors that haunt the civil rights movement. It was also great catching up with old characters from previous books, or witnessing infamous history from a different perspective, like the JFK assassination clean-up, Sonny Liston's alleged Outfit ties, the plots to discredit Dr. King, or the recruitment of both Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray. There were times when the book hovered around 4 and a half stars, but alas I have to settle on a 3.5. Hopefully the next book I read from him is back to the A-quality I've come to expect!...more
⭐️⭐️1/2 Ellroy seems like he's running out of steam here. Story-wise and stylistically, this novel fits right in as the final book in the Underworld US⭐️⭐️1/2 Ellroy seems like he's running out of steam here. Story-wise and stylistically, this novel fits right in as the final book in the Underworld USA trilogy, where he documents his own version of the history of this country's turbulent '60's, with this book pulling us from the MLK and Bobbie Kennedy assassinations and into the early 70's with the Nixon years and the Black Power movement. But it's a far cry from the quality of his masterpiece American Tabloid, and surprisingly, I even liked it a little less than the disappointing The Cold Six Thousand. While those two previous books had solid structures that moved on a path to their respective inevitable events in history, the historical material here doesn't provide such a trajectory, and much of it started to feel really repetitive. Even though it's an easier read than Cold Six, the main characters here were barely engaging. The book's best character by far, the fascinating FBI/Black Power Movement double agent Marshall Bowen, is relegated to mostly journal entries, where the book would've been so much better if he was a POV character!
I still love Ellroy's work in general but in this one, he either run out of interesting material to fill an epic novel, or the good stuff that he did have was misused....more
He used to pimp and pull shakedowns. Now he rode shotgun to History.
Whoa, Ellroy's done it again: another 5-star read. So far, that's 5 o
He used to pimp and pull shakedowns. Now he rode shotgun to History.
Whoa, Ellroy's done it again: another 5-star read. So far, that's 5 out of 5 for me. This time, he takes his talent for weaving complex plots and conspiracies from his 50's Los Angeles setting and unleashes it nationwide in an epic re-shaping of the country's turbulent history between 1958 and 1963 as we follow three men who play pivotal roles in the events that ultimately lead to that infamous day in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
Just when I thought a conspiracy couldn't get any more complex than L.A. Confidential's, this book takes it to a whole new level. But surprisingly, even though this is bigger in scope, I actually found it easier to follow along here than in Confidential. I'm not sure why that is, but maybe it has something to do with Ellroy's growth as a writer.
His courage was weakness pushed into grandiosity.
Along with the immense amount of historical detail, plot development, and supporting players, Ellroy is able to create three of his most fascinating protagonists who, through their individual fears, dreams, and covetousness, end up creating the history we know today. Ward Littel is an FBI agent who dreams of taking down mobsters and has a fascination with crime-buster Robert Kennedy and his cool-cat buddy Kemper Boyd. Ward is desperate to get rid of his reputation for being a punk bitch, and decides that he'll do anything to gain favor, discovering talents that provide him an opportunity he's never dreamed of. His friend Kemper Boyd is obsessed with the Kennedy family and their high-class status, and starts to juggle multiple secret allegiances with the FBI, the CIA, the KKK, Jack Kennedy, and the Mob in order to get to that same status. Pete Bondurant is a shakedown artist and dope-procurer for Howard Hughes. He's getting tired of the extortion world and sees his job in jeopardy once Howard Hughes starts transforming into a Mormon vampire, so when Kemper and the CIA come calling, he sees a way out and a way to big money. These three guys are intriguing and complicated Ellroy creations, and their arcs and journeys are what really gives the book its heart.
Boyd was now some triple or quadruple agent. Boyd was a self-proclaimed insomniac. Boyd said rearranging lies kept him up nights.
Ellroy is constantly experimenting with form and language and it always works for me (but might not work for other people). I'm not sure how he is able to pull this stuff off. It seems like he's so entrenched in the eras that he portrays, and these stories in his head are so desperate to get out, that the words just spill out onto the page. And what's produced is a piece of work that is his and his alone. He is definitely one of a kind. And as usual for Ellroy, there's enough material in this bad boy for three separate books. You would think that something this huge would run away and get too large for the author, but once again, he is able to stick his landing in glorious form and bring it all to an awesome ending. He really knows how to pull off a great conclusion and that's a big factor in my 5-star ratings.
Hughes kept Lenny on the payroll to write a private skank sheet. The sheet would feature skank too skanky for public skank consumption. The sheet would be read by two skank fiends only: Dracula and J. Edgar Hoover.
He is not interested in accuracy, but more interested in how the people in power in our country are just as complicated and enigmatic as we are. But while our complications only really have an effect on us or those close to us, their complications affect the whole country. So watch who you vote for.
How much of Ellroy's fucked-up epic is true? I have no clue, and that's not what matters. What matters is that we all know that it could happen in America and we wouldn't be all that surprised if it actually did happen. And that notion is terrifying.
It's time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define their time.
Communist witchhunts. B-movie studio westerns. South Central jazz. Hollywood labor union strikes. Mickey Cohen and his feud with Jack Dragna. Queer seCommunist witchhunts. B-movie studio westerns. South Central jazz. Hollywood labor union strikes. Mickey Cohen and his feud with Jack Dragna. Queer sex orgies at the Chateau Marmont. Howard Hughes and his penchant for underage girls and crashing airplanes. Friction between the LAPD and the LA County Sheriffs. The Sleepy Lagoon murder and the Zoot Suit Riots. And a sick serial killer that disembowels his homosexual victims by biting into them with animal teeth.
This loaded novel is about all that and more, and skillfully stuffed into a dense and thrilling 400+ pages! This book is really something special and James Ellroy is a writer with impressive skill and a great attention to detail. He mixes hard-boiled noir, a complex police procedural, and historical fiction into a stunning story, painting a vivid picture of Los Angeles in 1950, and mixing fictional characters with real life events the way Dennis Lehane does in The Given Day and HBO does with many of their shows, like Boardwalk Empire, Rome, and Deadwood.
With such complex and detailed plot lines as well as the book's colorful prose, characterization could have totally been left to the wayside. But Ellroy spends just as much time developing the entire cast of complex colorful characters, especially the three leads. The novel follows three law enforcement officers (an LA County Deputy Sheriff, a DA investigator, and a former crooked LAPD officer turned Howard Hughes pimp and bagman) as they get thrown into a grand jury probe against Communist influence in Hollywood as well as an investigation of a series of grisly serial murders. Each man has something to lose, something to hide, and in time, something to fight for. They're complex, you root for them at times and then despise them the next. And Ellroy expertly brings their separate stories together in a web of gripping mystery and tragedy.
I love my new home of Los Angeles and I have a fascination with old Tinseltown history and conspiracy, so one would wonder why I took so long to start reading James Ellroy novels. But no worries, with just this book, I'm now on the Ellroy train, and here for the long haul....more
Most people are familiar with the case of the Black Dahlia, one of the most infamous unsolved murder cases in U.S. history, where a young, pretty HollMost people are familiar with the case of the Black Dahlia, one of the most infamous unsolved murder cases in U.S. history, where a young, pretty Hollywood starlet named Elizabeth Short is found in a vacant lot, her body mutilated, disemboweled, and cut in half. But this isn't a true crime book. Just as in the fantastic The Big Nowhere, the first book I read by author James Ellroy, he mixes L.A. history and fascinating fictional characters and weaves an awesome tapestry of the seedy and depraved world of 1940's Los Angeles. The novel is told from the point of view of Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, who starts the book as a promising new LAPD warrants officer, until he gets embroiled in the case of the Black Dahlia, changing his life forever in more ways than one, as he is swept up in the obsessive circus that the investigation becomes.
This fixation on the case is personal for the author, he also fell victim to the Dahlia's pull in real life in the late 50's after Ellroy's mother was brutally murdered. He became fascinated with historical violent crime and studying the murder of Elizabeth Short became a proxy for dealing with his mother's death. This personal attachment fills the book with real earnestness and passion that helped to make it a crime classic.
Aside from the fact that Ellroy's usual knack for great wordplay is on display, one of the most interesting things about the novel is the way the obsession over the Dahlia is detailed, an obsession that jumps from person to person like a disease, eating away at everyone it touches. Although his partner jumps headfirst into the investigation, Bucky starts off fairly unfazed by the murder, annoyed at the media frenzy and eager to get back to working warrants; catching normal bad guys he can understand, not ones that cut Glasgow smiles into pretty girls' faces from ear to ear. But eventually he succumbs to the Dahlia's pull and falls deeper, the way Danny does in The Big Nowhere, so deep it becomes all he thinks about. The Black Dahlia is the story of that kind of obsession, the one that can eat away at the soul....more
L.A. Confidential feels like the book that James Ellroy has been preparing for and working up to during his entire career up to this point. He takes aL.A. Confidential feels like the book that James Ellroy has been preparing for and working up to during his entire career up to this point. He takes all of the themes he explored in previous novels and packs them into a book that's an even larger, more epic tale of crime, perversion, and Hollywood corruption than any of his previous books. L.A. Confidential tells the story of three LAPD officers who are initially at odds with one another after the infamous Bloody Christmas police brutality scandal and once again cross paths after a bloody massacre at the Nite Owl coffee shop in Hollywood. At first, each of them are involved in separate investigations. Slowly these mysteries all seem to connect to the Nite Owl in some way and ultimately, the men must learn to put their differences aside as they realize that they are neck deep in a scandal bigger than anything they could've imagined, one that goes beyond the Nite Owl Massacre, one that involves filth porn, heroin, tabloid extortion, a popular kid's theme park (Disneyland anyone?), and high-class whores cut to look like movie stars.
I mentioned before that the novel is even more epic than the previous ones in the L.A. Quartet, but is so huge that it's hard to keep track of at times, which makes for a slower read than the more focused stories in The Black Dahlia and The Big Nowhere. It has the most complicated mystery and conspiracy that I've ever read, so complicated that it seems to involve ever person living in L.A. County, and even the characters sometimes have to create graphs to keep track of everything. But no one could've wrangled all of these threads into something coherent other than author James Ellroy, showing his tremendous skill as a writer. And this is the novel where he begins his experimentation with his writing style, moving toward the clipped, manic, jazzy prose that he uses in later novels. Here, in order to cut down on page-count in order to get published, he cut out all unnecessary words.
As usual, the characters in this were fascinating, strong men with weaknesses and dark secrets, who through their investigation, seek something close to redemption. Edmund Exley is a young officer living under his father's shadow and a war hero reputation based on a lie, and who is an ambitious, by-the-book, do-gooder who believes in the pursuit of absolute justice and willing to rat out his fellow officers and be hated by everyone to move up in the department. Wendell "Bud" White is a bruising, hard boiled cop, haunted by witnessing the violent murder of his mother by his father, and takes it out on woman beaters that he arrests. He hates the fact that he's seen as lacking the intelligence to be a good detective and only good with his fists, and he becomes obsessed with privately investigating a string of hooker murders. And finally there's "Trashcan" Jack Vincennes, a Narcotics officer with his own skeletons in his closet, who's dead set on arresting drug users, but more importantly, he strives for Hollywood stardom, consulting on a hit cop show, rousts celebrity druggies, and gives exclusive dirt to tabloid writer Sid Hudgens and his Hush Hush scandal mag in exchange for cash, article write-ups, and a photo op. He begins investigating the production of porno picture books, and we realize that Trashcan Jack might also have an unhealthy obsession with what's between the pages of the books that he finds. The way that each story evolves and interconnects is truly something to behold! This book has enough story for 5 novels, but somehow it's told in about 500 pages. How that's even possible is beyond me...
The movie based on this book is one of my top five favorites, and reading this novel made me appreciate it even more. I've realized it's probably the best movie adaptation of a book to date. How it takes this loaded story that could be adapted into a 10-part miniseries, and successfully converts it into an exciting and engaging 2 hour, 20 minute movie is a feat that really should be recognized. Obviously the movie is missing lots of the story from the book, but the movie really stands on it's own, and skillfully combines multiple characters and creates new scenes and themes that still works to tell the story in an effective way. Although it's sadly missing much of Jack Vincennes's intriguing storyline, it introduces new backstory elements that I wish were in the book (Rollo Tomasi), strengthens the Bud and Exley dynamic, and makes Lynn Bracken an even stronger character. The fact that the movie is at times even better than the book and can stand on it's own really says something about the adaptation. I would suggest both seeing the movie and reading the book, as there is something to be gained by both.
James Ellroy is quickly becoming one of my favorites and I can't wait to soon read White Jazz and his other books. Anyway Dear Reader, that's all the dirt that's fit to print. And you heard it here first, off-the-record, on the QT, and very Hush Hush....more