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I'm a bit an Ellroy fan and have read all of his novels (haven’t read Destination: Morgue yet)
My favourite of his has to be American Tabloid which I finished off re-reading last night, I love that he made me really root for Pete Bondurant who is an amoral pimp, drug dealer, gun peddler and multiple murderer, *SPOILER* I would have been distraught if he had died at the end of American Tabloid, and was chuffed when he appeared in The Cold Six Thousand, which I read that Elroy is currently writing up a follow up to.
I am also fond of another of his anti hero’s Dudley Smith, who crops up in his early book Clandestine, and later is a major character in his LA quartet. *SPOILER* Dudley Smiths fate at the end of White Jazz really made me grin, he was too much of a rascal ( a bit of an understatement) to die.
I can see how people might find his whole clipped dialogue thing annoying
“Wayne yawned. Wayne stretched. Wayne scratched his balls. Wayne dumped his piss cup”
but it seems to suit the pace of the books, and if you don’t like it then read something else milquetoast ! (what is a milquetoast ?)
As for Ellroy’s brusque manner, a mate of mine went to a reading, at the Q+A session after someone asked the question he wanted to ask, he was then had to think of a question on the spot, which was “have you ever considered writing in any other genre?” Ellroys response was not a good one, and left my mate looking and feeling a bit stupid. Apparently he talks in some kind of 1950’s jive all of the time. |
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