Pierce, who was recommended to me by LA crime novelist Denise Hamilton, was so damned insightful\u00a0I felt bad at having to take just a few phrases of his for my article. So here is what was left on the cutting-room floor.<\/p>\n
Q: \u00a0How significant\/exciting is it to have a second LA Quartet on its way? Any parallels in literary or noir world? (It’s not quite the same as Tolkien releasing the Silmarillion after the ring trilogy, but gives background to some beloved characters and shows how the LAPD was rebuilt…)<\/em><\/p>\n A: There are crime novelists who have gone back to pen prequels to their series (sometimes in short-story form). But I cannot think of another author who has gone back to produce a series <\/em>of prequels, which is what I understand Ellroy to be doing with his Second L.A. Quartet. The only comparable efforts I can think of come from the Western-fiction genre (Larry McMurtry went back, after writing \u201cLonesome Dove\u201d and \u201cStreets of Laredo,\u201d to produce two prequels) and television (the BBC series \u201cEndeavour\u201d is a prequel to \u201cInspector Morse,\u201d which was based on Colin Dexter\u2019s mysteries).<\/p>\n I expect the scope of this Second L.A. Quartet to be sprawling and illuminating. It gives Ellroy the chance to explore the sources of his own characters\u2019 strengths and faults, and to do so against the heightened tensions of World War II. It\u2019s a huge canvas Ellroy has set up for himself, and I expect he\u2019ll make the most of it. He\u2019s learned well how to concoct revealing, labyrinthine journeys into the dark and corrupt heart of America. I anticipate this second Quartet will find a new basement beneath what we already thought was the depth of human and institutional treachery. It should be a haunting ride.<\/p>\n For a lot of folks I know, that original LA Quartet is the heart of his achievement. But maybe that’s a local bias. Does each of his novels have its own significant following?<\/em><\/p>\n I have only anecdotal evidence to prove this, but some of his initial novels seem to boast followings distinct from those of his later ones. I\u2019ve spoken with a number of people who take pride in having been early discoverers of Ellroy, back when \u201cBrown\u2019s Requiem,\u201d \u201cClandestine,\u201d \u201cBlood on the Moon,\u201d and a few other works were the only ones by which he could be judged. Many of these same folks stopped reading Ellroy\u2019s stuff as assiduously after the publication of \u201cThe Black Dahlia\u201d and \u201cL.A. Confidential,\u201d when he became more widely popular.<\/p>\n On the other hand, there are certainly fierce followers of the L.A. Quartet, who have never gone back to read those previous books. And other folks who stopped reading his work after \u201cWhite Jazz.\u201d For many, \u201cThe Black Dahlia\u201d and \u201cL.A. Confidential\u201d are the only Ellroy books they\u2019ve read, and they are quite content with that.<\/p>\n I wonder if there’s any sense that he’s lost some of his momentum recently: He has a TV show that went nowhere, his memoir (much of which was quite good, I thought) did not set the world on fire the way My Dark Places did, movies of his work have not matched the success of LA Confidential, and he had a very public affair here in LA w a fellow writer that didn’t end well. Does he seem to be at a funny, maybe vulnerable point now? I do think many readers look at Ellroy differently now than they did when he first achieved widespread popularity in the mid-1980s. Part of that is a consequence of the higher profile he\u2019s gained since then. We know more details about his life than we did 30 years ago–more about his boyhood delinquency and his teenage years as a self-described \u201cperv,\u201d his obsession with his mother\u2019s slaying and his troubled relationships with women, his alcoholism and his nervous breakdown–and not all of that has cast him in the most favorable light. When he first began writing, his novels were judged on their own strengths and weaknesses; now we perceive each new book partly through our understanding of his personal life, past and present.<\/p>\n That\u2019s unfortunate, but it\u2019s just the way it is. He seems to revel in the ego-stroking that comes from being recognized, being acclaimed by critics, and being courted by the media and by filmmakers alike. But Ellroy may have exposed himself too much. Perhaps he should turn his back on the limelight for awhile, adopt a lower profile, and let his books speak for him again. They\u2019re probably the best ambassadors he could send out into the world.<\/p>\n To what extent is he a different writer now than he was in the late \u201980s? How do his recent books differ from Black Dahlia and the orig quartet?<\/em><\/p>\n When Ellroy started out penning fiction, he was laboring at least to some degree in the light of other writers–some of whom he liked, some of whom he probably despised, but all of whose literary efforts had prepared the ground for him to take his own stab at crime-writing renown. Nowadays, Ellroy seems freer than he once did, less influenced by what other authors have tried to do–both in terms of tone and substance–and more influenced by his own successes, his own theories about what works and what doesn\u2019t in crime fiction.<\/p>\n He claims that he doesn\u2019t even read books by his contemporaries anymore, afraid that his work will be affected by theirs.<\/p>\n The downside of living in that sort of bubble may be that he no longer recognizes his stylistic excesses–his often heavy use of short sentences and short paragraphs, and his persistent pessimism. I think Ellroy is a much more confident and forceful writer than he once was, but he\u2019s also a more conscious stylist, prone to overplaying familiar tunes.<\/p>\n Anything in general you’d like to say about his influence and legacy — has he changed crime fiction? — would be useful.<\/em><\/p>\n Ellroy has made a huge contribution, I think, in teaching readers about Los Angeles history without actually sitting them down in a classroom, in front of a blackboard. His perspective on that city\u2019s past, while it skews toward the pulpish and corrupt, is nonetheless loving. There\u2019s an honesty to his portrayals of California\u2019s most populous burg that\u2019s often lacking in straightforward history texts.<\/p>\n In addition, he\u2019s a master of creating complex characters–damaged and difficult, but also resilient women who are defined by loss; no less damaged men who carry their scars like chains, and are helpless to escape the dark paths down which those scars lead them. Additionally, he\u2019s done a remarkable job of illuminating characters by their use of slang, by their idiosyncrasies, by their fears that so often leak out sideways, in violent acts. Fictional players like these aren\u2019t his invention alone; he just has a tremendous talent for making readers care about them, even if they don\u2019t understand them.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know that he\u2019s changed crime fiction so much as he\u2019s given it more realistic resonance and taught others how to do the same. One shouldn\u2019t open an Ellroy novel expecting to be reassured that the world is as he or she believes it to be, for Ellroy is sure to stomp such faiths into mush.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [contextly_auto_sidebar id=”oWUL3zIX6tkrbLbqzzcrPNH15S6oj1MP”] HOW does the new Ellroy novel, Perfidia, shape our thinking of his career? How has he changed as a writer? How does he fit in to noir’s history, and has he changed the field? These questions were on my mind while I was writing a recent profile of the edgy novelist, so I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[287,194,34,134],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blogs","7":"category-ellroy","8":"category-literary","9":"category-noir","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2135,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions\/2135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"220px-JamesEllroy\"](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/220px-JamesEllroy.jpg\")
<\/em><\/p>\n