James Ellroy

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international best sellers. His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. His novel The Cold Six Thousand was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book for 2001. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.

From a Q & A about his latest novel, Blood's A Rover:

Q: How does this book differ from the other two books in the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy? The plot is quite complex, and there are tons of characters. How did you keep all the story lines straight?

A: Truth be told, it’s markedly less complex than The Cold Six Thousand and slightly more complex than American Tabloid. The historical period–1968-1972–is less iconic than the periods covered in the first two books; thus, I had greater latitude to fictionalize. Again, this is a novel of outward revolution and revolution of the soul. There is greater dialectic in this novel than in my previous twelve novels combined. How did I keep the storyline straight? I wrote a 397-page outline, that laid out the action, down to the most minute detail. Meticulousness, diligence, profoundly rigorous work habits all contributed to the greatness of this novel. During the odd moments that my super-human resolve faltered, I stared at the numerous portraits of Beethoven that adorn my pad and at the photo of Joan that I keep on my nightstand (the left side, of course).

Q: As in the first two books, readers will recognize a lot of the names in Blood’s A Rover–Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, and Richard Nixon to name a few. So how much of the story is really true?

A: Yeah, Gay Edgar Hoover, Howard “Dracula” Hughes, and Tricky Dick Nixon appear...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue