James Ellroy recently took part in a controversial publicity video for the Playboy channel, which has achieved a minor level of notoriety. In a split second scene, Ellroy mimes masturbation when he is describing his past history of voyeurism and burglaries. The entire episode is just the sort of thing which gets overblown by angry responses on chat forums and internet threads.

Although Playboy is regarded as a soft-porn magazine, it has also achieved distinction through its long history of publishing interviews with prominent literary figures. Ellroy is one of the most prominent novelists in the US today, and Playboy is currently serialising his forthcoming memoir The Hilliker Curse. Ellroy also likes to shock and entertain through his Demon Dog persona, and the masturbation mime is a part of that persona.

The video itself is brilliant: it is the first in Playboy’s new writers series ‘Walkabout’. Ellroy explores all of his old haunts, including the houses he use to break into and then do things such as sniff women’s underwear and make himself sandwiches. Ellroy also visits nearby El Monte and stands at the spot where his mother’s strangled corpse was found outside Arroyo High School.

The masturbation mime is only one brief part of a seven minute video. You can watch the video here.

Après un premier film dont nous ne dirons jamais assez de bien (Maléfique), Eric Valette semblait s’être perdu au cœur du système, rattrapé par l’envie, légitime, de percer dans le genre de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, mais contraint d’abandonner aux mains des producteurs du remake de La Mort en ligne, ses velléités de réalisateur à personnalité prometteuse, offensive. Une mauvaise expérience suivie par la formalisation d’une série B (Hybrid) sous petite influence Cameron / Carpenter – si l’on se réfère en tout cas à sa bande-annonce aux tonalités volontairement eighties et marquée par l’empreinte fantastique de ces deux grands (une voiture « possédée » par le diable s’en prend aux résidents de nuit du garage d’un poste de police). En attendant la sortie de cet opus a priori un peu fauché mais sans doute très roboratif, le spectateur se réjouira du retour aux affaires du toulousain en Hexagone. Désireux de renouer avec une tendance disparue du cinéma français (le thriller politique engagé façon Le juge Fayard d’Yves Boisset ; 1977, tout de même !) tout en intégrant les archétypes jouissifs du polar américain, Eric Valette signe avec Une Affaire d’État le meilleur film de sa carrière mais aussi de l’année voire de la décennie dans nos frontières sclérosées par une cinématographie de fiction nombriliste et peu concernée par l’état du monde. Si l’on vous dit qu’en plus il est adapté du roman (Nos Fantastiques années fric) écrit par une auteure (Dominique Manotti) revendiquant clairement une construction à la James Ellroy et bien connue pour son traitement sans concession de la corruption de certains milieux d’affaires et politiques ; que Valette lui-même réinjecte cette appréhension mouvementée, composée d’une infinité de nuances dans la noirceur, d’un univers violent, décadent et fortement dénonciateur ; qu’il n’a pas été produit par les chaînes hertziennes nationales (le fléau de notre production cinématographique : quand le petit écran formate et décide du grand, voyez ce que ça donne toute l’année), il ne vous reste en principe aucune excuse pour ne pas courir le voir dès sa sortie.

Une Affaire d’État ne ressemble à aucun autre film français récent et, bien qu’exploitant une caractérisation typiquement hardboiled, ne se complaît jamais dans l’imitation décadrée du film noir américain mâtiné de thriller paranoïaque et violent : il intègre ces genres tout en restant lui-même et vous vous surprendrez à trouver qu’à travers la vision particulière de Valette, Paris la nuit puisse paraître aussi vénéneuse, nébuleuse, comploteuse qu’une Washington en pleine malversation chez Pakula ou qu’une San Francisco criminelle chez Don Siegel.
Le film tisse une toile de corruption, de meurtres et de trahisons politiques autour de deux événements que des milliers de kilomètres séparent : l’explosion d’un avion transportant des armes de fabrication française au-dessus du Golfe de Guinée, et l’assassinat dans un parking parisien d’une escort girl / indic d’un photographe people en quête de révélations de secrets d’État. Autour de ces intrigues qui n’en formeront bientôt qu’une, gravitent l’inspectrice nerveuse Nora Chayd (Rachida Brakni, efficace et juste), le Monsieur Afrique officieux du gouvernement Victor Bornand (André Dussolier, terrifiant de réalisme étatique) et son homme de main Michel Fernandez (Thierry Frémont, magnétique, crépusculaire, glaçant), un ancien des services de renseignements.

En s’attelant à un sujet aux ramifications internationales, Eric Valette insuffle à son film la vision universelle du genre qu’il sert, vision qu’il manque à la majorité de nos productions même volontaristes. Le réalisateur rejette toute idée de film-débat à thèse et au rayonnement documentaire pour privilégier le divertissement solide où s’imbriquent realpolitik et ténébreuses actualités, scandales en général (mercenaires et sociétés écrans), dessous de la Françafrique en particulier : le sous-texte d’Une Affaire d’État convoque ainsi dans un climat très barbouzard les figures compromises de la société civile et affairiste française voire internationale. Derrière Bornand / Dussolier se profile l’image du tutélaire et grand ordonnateur Jacques Foccart (secrétaire d’Etat aux affaires africaines et malgaches du Général de Gaulle), référence à laquelle s’ajoutent les échos de l’Angolagate, des influences exercées par les services secrets et de contre-espionnage sur des marchands de mort comme Jacques Monsieur ou Pierre Falcone, des négociations / triturations mercantiles de sociétés comme la Sofremi (une entité dépendante du Ministère de l’Intérieur, d’ailleurs dirigé par Charles Pasqua au moment de l’affaire du trafic d’armes vers l’Angola) que n’hésitait pas à saisir la DST (devenue depuis la DCRI) ; sans oublier les réminiscences de la guerre civile du Congo Brazzaville en 1997, au cours de laquelle la compagnie Elf accepta de prêter de l’argent destiné à payer des armes (grâce à des contrats de préfinancement) au gouvernement de Pascal Lissouba dans sa lutte contre l’ancien Président Denis Sassou N’Guesso. Ce sont aussi des trafics d’influence plus étendus encore (drogue, réseaux de prostitution huppés, guerre des services de renseignements) que pointe en fligrane le film de Valette, suspendant toute démonstration géopolitique péremptoire pour conduire un récit flamboyant à l’équilibre parfait entre action et conversations secrètes.

Une Affaire d’État peut ainsi se prévaloir d’un formalisme sec et soigné, dénué d’ostentation et de surcharge : l’action domine le récit sans sacrifier au chaos des sens ni au brouillage visuel ; tout est frontal, donc d’autant plus brutal. Les personnages et situations s’avèrent bien trempés dans un univers ambigü aux éclairages marqués : entre l’inspectrice en quête de vérité (mention spéciale également à son chef interprété par l’excellent Gérald Laroche, dont Valette, Xavier Durringer et Olivier Marchal sont les seuls à avoir appréhendé tout le talent) et le corrompu Bornand s’étend ainsi toute une zone de gris, représentée par Fernandez, un anti-héros violent pris dans un engrenage de jeux de pouvoir, caractère tout droit sorti d’un roman d’Ellroy. À cet égard, Valette gère les incursions de ses protagonistes comme le Maître du polar US, déambulant entre les existences jusqu’à les faire se croiser (mise en scène que renforce ici l’utilisation de thèmes musicaux spécifiques à des personnages), s’affronter, s’équilibrer dans le bien et le mal, dans la pureté et la manipulation. Fernandez s’impose ici comme le point nodal de l’intrigue, le mal nécessaire d’un monde corrompu dont les héros ne sont plus les figures droites de l’âge d’or. À l’instar des mauvais garçons Kemper Boyd et Pete Bondurand dans American Tabloïd, Fernandez (incroyable Frémont, on le répète) attire à lui toute l’attention et l’empathie du spectateur, pourtant révulsé par la noirceur et l’incontrôlable violence de son personnage. C’est la force du film de Valette : nous faire basculer dans l’ère du soupçon, la véritable identité du thriller moderne, la raison d’être d’un cinéma tel que le conçoivent les meilleures productions du monde. Et la France fait partie du monde – ce que semblent avoir oublié les départements « cinéma » de nos chaînes de télévision, qui refusèrent de financer le film parce qu’il s’attardait trop sur Fernandez. À croire qu’il s’agit aussi, côté 7e Art, d’une affaire d’État…

Stéphane Ledien

> Sortie en salles le 25 novembre 2009

> Lire aussi notre article sur Maléfique dans VERSUS n° 4 et notre article sur les intrigues du complexe militaro-industriel dans VERSUS n° 17, actuellement en vente.

Bande-annonce de Une Affaire d’État

Trailer de Hybrid, sortie prévue au printemps en France

Genre: Crime

Year of Publication: 2009

Book 3 of the Underworld USA Trilogy

Political noir as only James Ellroy can write it. The incendiary standalone sequel to American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand – a massive tale of corruption and retribution, conspiracy and cover-up.

It is summer, 1968. The country is exploding. We are running point with three men: a Klan-raised, Yale-educated FBI agent infiltrating black-militant groups at J. Edgar Hoover’s racist behest and obsessed with a leftist shadow figure named Joan Rosen Klein. An ex-cop and heroin runner paving the way for the mob’s casinos in the Dominican Republic. A young L.A. ‘wheelman’� for divorce lawyers within tantalizing reach of the men who killed the Kennedys and Martin Luther King and took us to the threshold of Watergate. Their lives collide in pursuit of the ‘Red Goddess Joan’� – and they will all pay ‘a dear and savage price to live History.’�

Once again James Ellroy razes and reconstructs our recent past. Blood’s A Rover is his largest and greatest work of fiction.

DOWNLOAD LINK

http://ifile.it/kne8pqi

Peter Ackroyd

As soon as you finish Paul Auster’s “Invisible” you want to read it again. And not because, as sometimes with his novels — as with the novels of Georges Perec, one of a handful of other real authors mentioned in the book — you suddenly suspect, at the very end, that you haven’t properly understood a word of what has gone before. You want to reread “Invisible” because it moves quickly, easily, somehow sinuously, and you worry that there were good parts that you read right past, insights that you missed. The prose is contemporary American writing at its best: crisp, elegant, brisk. It has the illusion of effortlessness that comes only with fierce discipline. As often happens when you are in the hands of a master, you read the next sentence almost before you are finished with the previous one. The novel could be read shallowly, because it is such a pleasure to read.

Zadie Smith

Interview on NPR with Zadie Smith:

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna:

In the end, Kingsolver gives the idea of disappearance a surprising moral dimension. When Shepherd and Violet Brown decry the constant talk in America, the gossip, the radio, the filling in of silences with lies – “God speaks for the silent man” – they risk self-righteousness. Yet a more subtle observation is at stake, and at last it emerges in a conversation they have about the Mayans, and whether they should consider themselves a “failed culture” because they are no longer a dominant one. “No use admiring a thing just because it lasted”, Brown tells Shepherd. Perhaps, she suggests, rather than glorifying the urge of writers and politicians and lovers to be remembered, to impress themselves on the world, “we should admire people the most for living in this jungle without leaving one mark on it”.

Maya Angelou sits down for an interview. David Vann writes an ode to Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian:

Representations of hell have always worked to reveal the shapes of our lives, abstract landscapes meant to describe the felt and suspected landscapes within us. The external world is a sign in fiction, all of it responsive: “Under the hooves of the horses the alabaster sand shaped itself in whorls strangely symmetric like iron filings in a field and these shapes flared and drew back again, resonating upon that harmonic ground and then turning to swirl away over the playa. As if the very sediment of things contained yet some residue of sentience. As if in the transit of those riders were a thing so profoundly terrible as to register even to the uttermost granulation of reality.” The landscape in Blood Meridian is a portrait of us, a secular inferno necessary because, although we may not believe, we still know we are doomed. We shall destroy all we know and then live on.

Vann talks about Legend of A Suicide:

Blake Morrison looks at a century of Poetry Review:

In gathering up the best of 100 years of poetry and debate for this anthology, Fiona Sampson, the current editor of the Poetry Review, doesn’t dwell on the duels and hissy fits. But neither does she pretend that schisms didn’t, or don’t, exist. The first few pieces map out the war zone. On one side, “The Old Vicarage, Grantchester” by Rupert Brooke (“And is there honey still for tea?”) and Henry Newbolt on why Robert Bridges is the greatest poet of the age (“The joy that abounds from these poems is from a bluer heaven than any other that has shone over England”). On the other side, Marinetti’s manifesto for futurism and Ezra Pound on his hopes for the poetry of the next decade (“It will be as much like granite as it can be . . . austere, direct, free from emotional slither”). It’s the old guard versus Modernists, with manifestos flying like grenades.

Jane Urquhart

Gisteren deden we iets literairs, vandaag doen we dat opnieuw. We houden wel van een goeie mix tussen spannende én kwalitatief goede literatuur dus proberen we om de volgende Scandinavische sensatie in een mum van tijd uit te lezen. Dé literaire thrillersensatie van 2009 was ongetwijfeld de Millenniumtrilogie van Stieg Larsson, die ik las en degelijk bevond. Zelfs het verfilmde deel 1 lokte me richting bioscoop, maar om nu te zeggen dat de gehele reeks een absolute ‘must’ is voor iedereen … nee!

Eigenlijk verwacht ik erg veel van het eerste deel van wat wellicht de allernieuwste sensatie in thrillerland zal worden: ‘De Stockholmtrilogie’ van Jens Lapidus. Lapidus is op dit moment de best verkopende levende auteur als we bepaalde literaire bronnen mogen geloven. Van zijn eerste twee romans uit deze trilogie zijn wereldwijd totnogtoe meer dan één miljoen exemplaren verkocht. En dan te denken dat deel 2, ‘Bloedlink’ (mei 2010) en deel 3, ‘Val dood’ (voorjaar 2011) nog in vertaling moeten verschijnen. Januari 2010 zal de eerste verfilming trouwens al in de Zweedse bioscopen draaien. Maar waarover gaat ‘Snel geld’ nu eigenlijk?

In Stockholm, waar de decadente bovenwereld en de rauwe onderwereld van Zweden nauw met elkaar verbonden zijn, verdwijnt een jonge vrouw spoorloos en kruisen de wegen van drie jonge mannen elkaar. Mrado is een Joegoslavische huurling die de voogdij over zijn dochtertje probeert te krijgen. Jorge is een drugsdealende latino die uit de gevangenis ontsnapt. De ambitieuze student JW ten slotte zoekt koortsachtig manieren om zijn dure levensstijl te kunnen blijven betalen. Alledrie zwichten ze voor de destructieve lokroep van de cocaïnehandel. Net als de verdwenen jonge vrouw dromen ze van een beter leven, maar dan hebben ze wel geld nodig. Veel geld. Snel.

De vergelijking met Stieg Larsson komt niet zo maar aanwaaien. Beide auteurs pakken uit met een trilogie die zich afspeelt in de Zweedse onderwereld. Maar dat zou dan ook de enige link zijn tussen hen. Lapidus (1974) haalt zijn inspiratie eigenlijk uit het dagelijks leven, waarin hij een befaamd strafrechtpleiter is, die nogal wat beruchte Zweedse misdadigers verdedigde. Het criminele wereldje is als het ware zijn tweede biotoop. ‘Snel geld’ bevat 429 pagina’s, is uitgegeven bij A.W. Bruna en kost ca. 19,95 euro. Of het een heuse pageturner is weet ik jullie binnen enkele dagen te vertellen! Voor wie nog op zoek is naar literaire referenties: men noemt Lapidus wel eens ‘De Zweedse James Ellroy‘ en zijn stijl zou ook die van Dennis Lehane benaderen.

Here is James Ellroy being interviewed and Philip Roth being reviewed.

Update: While I’m messing around with audio, here’s a 1987 interview with Paul Auster.

De voorbije twee maanden wat minder gelezen, al werd dat gelukkig wel gecompenseerd door een paar heel fijne leeservaringen.

• Patrick Ness - The Ask And The Answer. Tweede deel van de Chaos Walking-trilogie, waarvan het derde deel gepland staat voor 2010. Samengevat: vermoedelijk het beste jeugdboek dat ik las sinds, uhm, m’n jeugd. Inhoudelijk zit het anders, maar je zou het kunnen vergelijken met The Lord Of The Rings: het eerste deel is lichter van toon, kleurrijk, haast een avonturenboek. Het tweede deel is een pak donkerder, gewelddadiger en wat taaier. Maar het is een bescheiden triomf geworden: een onheilszwanger en goed geschreven oorlogsboek met sci-fi- en fantasy-elementen, en onderliggende thema’s als genocide, collectieve schuld, individuele verantwoordelijkheid, racisme, etc. (****1/2)
• Ian McEwan – Amsterdam. De gruwel van McEwan wordt gedomesticeerd, nog wat verfijnd, verburgerlijkt en het gevolg is dat z’n boeken toch wat van hun charme verliezen. Nog op het programma: ’s mans meest bejubelde werken Atonement, Saturday en On Chesil Beach. Benieuwd wat dat brengt. (***1/2)
• Anthony Bourdain – Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in The Culinary Underbelly. Een beetje een Jamie Oliver from hell, deze Bourdain. De man staat achter het fornuis is een gerenommeerd New Yorks restaurant en doet uit de doeken hoe het eraan toe gaat in die betere restaurants. Wat volgt is een brok opschepperij van een paar honderd pagina’s, over slavenlabeur, drugsgebruik in e keuken, geweld en andere toestanden die de onwetende restaurantbezoeker zelden of nooit te zien krijgt. Bij momenten héél erg grappig, zeker als je het zootje in je achterhoofd verplaatst naar een Vlaemsche locatie, maar het blijft uiteindelijk ook bij een repetitieve opsomming van sterke verhalen. (***)
• George P. Pelecanos – The Night Gardener en The Turnaround. De eerste is een prima mystery thriller, de tweede is een uitstekende toevoeging aan zijn meer sociaal-realistische werken. (***1/2 en ****)
• A.F.Th. van der Heijden – Doodverf. Elders uitvoerig genoeg besproken. (****)
• Mark Oliver Everett – Things The Grandchildren Should Know. Een van de meest leesbare boeken van een muzikant ooit? Misschien wel, want Everett (E) slaagt erin om de bullshit tot het absolute minimum te beperken. TTGSK bevat de memoires van een man die op z’n veertigste al genoeg heeft meegemaakt voor drie mensenlevens. De toon van het boek is het bijzonderst, een opmerkelijk evenwicht van berusting, ernst en humor. Wordt een groot deel van het boek gespendeerd aan het verziekte gezinsleven van de Everetts, de dood van zijn ouders, de zelfmoord van zijn moeder en de ellende van anderen in zijn omgeving (Everett is echt een shit magnet), dan biedt het ook het verhaal van Eels. Je hoeft echter geen fan te zijn om het te kunnen waarderen. (****)
• Phil Freeman – Sound Levels: Profiles In American Music, 2002-2009. Bundel interviews die Freeman de voorbije jaren schreef voor allerhande publicaties. In deze bundel bespreekt Freeman, een muziekjournalist die zowel over free jazz als extreme metal schrijft, vooral de driehoeksverhouding tussen de artiest, diens rol op het podium en het publiek. Het levert interessante conversaties op met figuren als Tom Waits, Ornette Coleman, Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), Mike Patton, David Thomas (Pere Ubu), de jongens van SunnO))) en een resem andere bekende en minder bekende figuren. Verkrijgbaar als boek of download (voor 3,5 euro) via Lulu. (***1/2)
• Richard Price – Lush Life. Schrijver van Clockers, Freedomland, Samaritan én schrijver voor The Wire. Beetje vergelijkbaar met Pelecanos, maar dan serieuzer, nog meer op de route van het realisme en soms met een Dickensiaanse opzet. Een verhaal over grootstadsmisdaad, maar ook de manier waarop het levens verandert en verhouding bepaalt tussen klassen en rassen. Indrukwekkend (****).
• Paul Auster – Invisible. Of eigenlijk Onzichtbaar, de Nederlandstalige versie. De beste Auster in lange tijd, met typische experimenten én een verhaal dat boeit. (****)
• James Ellroy – Blood’s A Rover. Derde en laatse deel van de Underworld USA-trilogie. Lijkt de stilistische waanzin van de twee vorige delen niet verder te zetten: het boek is iets minder taai en complex dan voorganger The Cold 6000, waardoor het eerder aansluit bij American Tabloid. Het verhaal wordt verdergezet vanaf 1968 en loopt tot 1972. Opnieuw volgt Ellroy drie protagonisten, allemaal op de een of andere manier betrokken bij wat er achter de politieke en criminele schermen gebeurt. FBI, maffia, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, communisten, zwarte miltanten, allemaal zitten ze met hun motieven verstrengeld in aanvankelijk onontwarbare verhaallijnen die gaandeweg duidelijker worden. Elementen uit de hardboiled-traditie worden gekoppeld aan een politieke thriller vol paranoia, msileidende façades en geweld. Opnieuw niks voor gevoelige zieltjes (en blijf ervan af als je totaal geen voeling hebt met de politieke geschiedenis van de VS), maar die typische schwung, dat ritmische vertellen, die taalwoede, blijft intact. Een boek dat de noties van de traditionele roman op z’n kop zet en uitpakt met een zeldzame combinatie van ambitie en lef. De voorbije jaren kwam je redelijk wat pastiches tegen van ’s mans ultra-herkenbare stijl, al kan je niet anders dan vermoeden dat het gaat om een verdedigingsmechanisme. Het is immers weinigen gegeven (Selby? Miller?) om keer op keer zo verwoestend uit te halen en of je nu houdt van die stijl of niet, het is als getuige zijn van een razende natuurkracht. Blood’s A Rover is een beklemmend, verwarrend en overdonderend meesterwerk. Het is inderdaad maar misdaadliteratuur. Het schrijft ook 95% van de Vlaamse schrijversgilde op een navelstaarderig hoopje. (*****)
• Eugene S. Robinson – A Long Slow Screw. Beantwoordt aan wat ik ervan verwachtte. Een bevlogen misdaadroman in de hardboiled-traditie. Al is overcooked misschien beter, want Robinsons geweld gaat net iets verder dan dat van zijn voorgangers. Begint wat krampachtig en komt moeilijk op gang, al is de tweede helft een overtuigende rit. (***1/2)
• Nu bezig: David Simon – Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets. Om de Wire-ervaring nog eens mee te maken.

NP: Digital Primitives - Hum, Crackle & Pop

The Telegraph has a behind-the-scenes look at James Ellroy and his new book, Blood’s A Rover. We can add this to Writers and Their Routines.

He takes a slurp from his mug. He’ll drink another before we’re done, on top of the three or four he’s already had today. Having quit drinking in 1977, caffeine is practically his only vice these days.

He gets up around 5.30am, has black coffee and oatmeal, and sits down to write at his desk, in an office whose walls are covered with memorabilia about himself: book and film posters; photos from signings; and awards.

He writes with a fountain pen on white ruled paper. He edits the draft with red ink before an assistant types it up – he has never learnt to type, let alone use a computer – then goes over it again in red ink.

And, Ellroy says he was motivated to write his new book after a failed love affair.

‘Yeah. I like to think, I like to brood. I like to lie around and let my mind run. I go for a drive so I can think. I lie awake in bed and just follow my imagination,’ Ellroy says.

Does it ever become self-destructive, letting the mind run into paranoia, betrayal and violence? He stares at me in a distracted kind of way.

‘I’ll tell you how I got to this point,’ Ellroy finally says. ‘The preceding book in this trilogy, The Cold Six Thousand, was too stylistically rigid. I knew it was flawed. My ex-wife, Helen Knode, who’s also a novelist, said: “Get back to your heart.”

‘Well, Helen and I broke up and later I met a woman in San Francisco. She was Jewish, I’m gentile. She was Marxist, I’m a Tory. She was atheist, I’m religious. She was bisexual, I’m straight. It was a very passionate, wild, all-encompassing thing. And it didn’t work out. It was a deeply romantic relationship, where a man and woman were united by both physical passion and trauma.

‘It ended badly. I moved to LA, she stayed in San Francisco. It was an affair that burned my life down. But I learnt a lot and when it ended, I thought: “You can turn this to s—, or you can write a book.”’

So he pondered the clash of philosophies and emotional turmoil he’d just lived, and started to construct his new novel’s enigmatic female lead – ‘a titanic revolutionary figure, who happens to be Jewish’ – called Joan Rosen Klein. He spent eight months making notes, writing and rewriting, thinking, reading and researching, until he’d written 400 pages.

That was the outline. Then he sent a friend to the Dominican Republic, to do some more research and take some photos. Going there himself, he says, would have been a waste of time: ‘If you’re a novelist all you need to do is look at a picture and you’ve got it.’ Finally, he gathered his materials and sat down to write. Eleven months later he had an epic novel.

Star of the Noir: an audience with ‘LA Confidential’ author James Ellroy – Telegraph

Came across this interview with L.A. Confidential writer James Ellroy on the Telegraph website.

I can’t recall if I’ve read any of his novels, though I had met him at a book signing in Michigan. Still I liked the details about his everyday life as a writer: Up at 5:30 for black coffee and oatmeal; writes with a fountain pen (I love those, but haven’t used mine in quite a while); sends out friends for field research.

Michael Eric Dyson wrote a book on Nas and his landmark album, Illmatic that is due out in January. Born to Use Mics is discussed in a few places:

Nah Right

Pitchfork

Daily Swarm

Lit.

• Philip Gourevitch is leaving the Paris Review.

• The Rumpus discusses Sigrid Nunez’s memoir relationship with Susan Sontag in the new issue of Tin House.

• Happy National Bookstore Day!

• Is the “myth building” around Bolaño getting to be too much?

• The Guardian reviews James Ellroy’s Blood’s a Rover.

Sesame Street is 40!

• Brooklyn Public Library is celebrating the shows birthday on Nov. 14th.

• SFGate talks about the man behind the bird.

Music stuff.

• Dirty Projectors live on Sirus XMU

Feline obsession.

• Miss Heather saves a bodega cat named Larry.

• “Stupid cat“.

Yum and “yum”.

• Arby’s is that low on the restaurant food chain?  Yeh, they are.

• Now Minetta Tavern on the other hand…

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Det finns ingen bok som jag sett fram emot så mycket som den avslutande delen i James Ellroys “Underworld USA” triologi. Och förväntningarna har inte blivit mindre av att exempelvis Chuck Pahlaniuk kallat boken för Ellroys stora mästerverk.

Blood’s a Rover handlar är en typisk avslutning. De stora dramatiska händelserna, Grisbukten och morden på JFK, RFK och Martin Luther King har redan inträffat och mycket handlar om att knyta ihop trådar, städa upp och tvätta smutsig byk.

Som vanlig kretsar historien kring ett antal destruktiva män med flerdubbla lojaliteter. J Edgar Hoover är precis lika skönt megalomanisk som tidigare. Kan villigt erkänna att jag snott en hel del från Ellroys porträtt av honom när jag konstruerade Metropias storpotät Ivan Bahn. Men den här gången är det faktiskt kvinnorna som regerar. Och de har bara en lojalitet. Socialismen.

Det här är det mest komplexa Ellroy skrivit. Även om han fortfarande använder sin korthuggna telegramstil är  till och med orden mer tvetydiga än tidigare. Jag orkade sällan läsa fler än två sidor åt gången. Sedan var jag tvungen att stanna upp. Ibland för att fundera över vad han menar. Ibland för att jag glömt att andas.

Ok, jag slutar nog där. Skulle ändå aldrig kunna göra boken rättvisa. Även om både American Tabloid och The Cold Six Thousand är bättre, är det här den bästa boken jag läst på flera år. Och det finns fortfarande ingen som kan beskriva tillståndet i ett stad så här precist och koncentrerat:

Santo Domingo by night: 82° and still fascist-oppressed

I have to say – and this will sound bad after slagging on Stephen King a bit – that I have a soft spot for James Ellroy. Though, he never met a sentence longer than the width of the page, I’ve always enjoyed reading his stuff, even the Twitter-ready Cold Six Thousand. Evidently he is back in form with his new book, Blood’s a Rover. Or so The Independent believes. May be worth tracking down a copy.

Twenty years ago American crime fiction seemed to have a power and a potential mainstream fiction had lost. The best US crime writers – Ellroy, Leonard, Burke – combined storytelling energy with a serious will to get to grips with the state of America. Since then, much of that potential has dissipated. With Blood’s a Rover, Ellroy has finally delivered on that mislaid potential. It’s a seedy, erratic, bloody and compassionate masterpiece.

Blood’s a Rover, By James Ellroy – Reviews, Books – The Independent

I’ve just returned home after seeing James Ellroy give a talk and book reading at the Dancehouse theatre, Manchester as part of the UK publicity tour for his new novel Blood’ a Rover. Few novelists today have the stage presence of Ellroy: he begins with quickfire quotes from TS Eliot and Anne Sexton, then moves on to more quotes from WH Auden and AE Houseman, the latter of whom he labels as ‘British poofters’. There were plenty of politically incorrect and very funny jokes. When asked if he has ever been sued by the families of the many prominent figures he has scandalously portrayed in his novels, Ellroy responded that if the Kennedy family ever tried to sue him they would have to spend so much time in the courtroom: ‘They’d have no time to get drunk, rape and kill women.’  But behind the Demon Dog persona there was a generous, courteous side to Ellroy as he gave in-depth and revealing answers to any question from the audience. It was very clear from his performance that Ellroy is a man who loves people and loves to perform for his readers.

If you want to see Ellroy on tour you will have to move quickly as there are only two more UK dates. Ellroy is in Glasgow tomorrow, and Belfast on Saturday.

• Ik weet niet of Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone echt graag muziek maken. Als dat toch het geval is (kan het anders?), dan slagen ze er verdomd goed in om daar niets van te laten merken. Verslag.
• Blood’s A Rover, de laatste Ellroy, is een geweldig boek: brutaal, taai en complex. Stilistisch wel toegankelijker dan voorganger The Cold 6000.
• Intussen Resonance van Ken Vandermark in bezit. Prachtige uitgave (mooi bedrukte kartonnen doos, verzorgde lay-out, per artiest een folder met interview in het Engels én Pools), maar ‘t gaat werken worden. Ik zou beter geen albums meer kopen, ik krijg het allemaal niet meer beluisterd.
• Ook u bent uitgenodigd (en ja het is een donderdag en ja u moet ’s anderendaags werken en ja ‘t zal op tijd gedaan zijn):

• Of hier: zo 8/11 – Sodom (Tongeren), met Gunslinger (UK) of wo 18/11 – Magasin 4 (Brussel), met Solar Skeletons (B/FRA) en Arabrot (NOR)

NP: Hot Chip – Made In The Dark

1. American Tabloid
2. The Big Nowhere
3. My Dark Places
4. Blood’s A Rover
5. L.A. Confidential
6. The Cold 6000
7. The Black Dahlia
8. White Jazz
9. Clandestine
10. Brown’s Requiem

NP: Richard & Linda Thompson – In Concert November 1975

From the most recent issue of The Paris Review:

INTERVIEWER
You’ve called Dashiell Hammett “tremendously great” and Raymond Chandler “egregiously overrated.” Why?

ELLROY
Chandler wrote the kind of guy that he wanted to be, Hammett wrote the kind of guy that he was afraid he was. Chandler’s books are incoherent. Hammett’s are coherent. Chandler is all about the wisecracks, the similes, the constant satire, the construction of the knight. Hammett writes about the all-male world of mendacity and greed. Hammett was tremendously important to me.
Joseph Wambaugh was immensely important, too. He is a former policeman whose view of LA perfectly dovetailed with my minor miscreant’s view of LA. I also loved the quickness, the ugliness, the assured fatality of James M. Cain. That giddy sense that doom is cool. You just met a woman, you had your first kiss, you’re six weeks away from the gas chamber, you’re fucked, and you’re happy about it.

The Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 201

A review of “The Black Dahlia”, by James Ellroy, read by Stephen Hoye on Unabridged Audiobook

Look for the woman.  This pulp fiction mantra is resurrected by James Ellroy in his signature novel, The Black Dahlia.  The golden age of such fiction had passed by, Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler well into the big sleep by 1987, when Ellroy’s novel was published.  Yet as often happens with literature/fiction, what was old becomes new again if you just wait long enough.

Ellroy resurrected a true-crime story, that of the murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles in 1947.  With such endeavors an author can assume one of two things about his reader, either of which may be correct.  The first is that the reader is not aware of the based-in-truth aspect of the story.  The second is that the reader is fully aware that the story is based on things that did occur and which the author fills in the gray areas with his prose.

I entered into my listening of the novel in the first camp.  I was aware that the novel had been made into a film and was in need of a distraction for a six-hour business drive.  I ran across the novel in a book called 1001 Books You must Read Before you Die, edited by Peter Boxall, which I use not as a firm list of titles to read, but more as a reference for authors whose works have some acclaim and deserve some attention (John Banville’s The Sea, reviewed prior, is also from the list).

With hard-boiled crime stories, authors have a number of approaches.  One is hard and fast, akin to two middleweights in a stick-and-move jab-fest, or in a more plodding fashion, as of two heavyweights feeling each other out and looking for the opening for the destruction of a haymaker.  Ellroy manages to do both with this novel.

The boxing analogy is apt.  Ellroy’s protagonist, Bucky Bleichert,  is a light-heavy of local renown, undefeated but now retired from the ring to a life as one of Los Angeles’s finest.  His partner is another former boxer, a heavyweight, and the opening sequences of the book center around their budding partnership and the murder that would drive them together and eventually, apart.

I won’t delve too deeply into plot; I don’t care much for reviews that tell too much of the story and as such will tend to focus on the elements of the story and how Ellroy makes them work.  There’s a personal bent in this novel, explained by the author in the afterword for the novel, printed in later editions after the release of the Brian De Palma film in 2006.  Ellroy’s mother was the victim of another unsolved crime of passion, near the same time as the Dahlia’s murder.  Ellroy mines those personal feelings and supplies the resultant ore to Bucky, allowing him to feel things in ways that another author would have struggled to achieve.

The novel is accessible in every way.  It is a topic of interest, it is written with a minimum of linguistic calisthenics, and most of all the characters are believable and strong, each and every one save ancillary police officers there to fill the gaps of shift differentials and departmental politics.

The men are men, the women are women, but the women are also strong in ways we don’t always associate with post WWII women.  Sexually adventurous, morally ambiguous, but with the outward appearances of dilettantes, soft features in tight, woolen clothing.  Think Mad Men’s women before Mad Men’s women were widespread in the media.

An overused critique of many male authors is that they fail to bring the proper insight into the world of women.  Seen but not heard is the calling card of the chauvinistic.  Ellroy couldn’t tell his story without making his women strong characters.  Kay Lake, Madelyn Sprague and even the Black Dahlia, who we never meet alive, are all well-constructed characters with depth, maybe even more so than the “what you see is what you get” Bucky.

Ellroy takes a hard-case crime story and makes it into mainstream fiction which is straddling the border with literature.   I’m not a literature snob, but it is all too clear that some things are undeniably literature while others don’t try to be.  I also don’t believe that just because something sells a million copies that it is populous crap.  Ellroy managed to write a novel that is, again, accessible.  As an individual who does enjoy a novel that sends me to the dictionary constantly, I didn’t feel as though Ellroy was selling anything short or pandering for an audience.  Billy Joel said in “Just the Way You Are” that he didn’t want clever conversation because he never wants to work that hard.  I don’t mind working that hard, but I also like not having too and still getting a good story in the end.

It is a personal novel above all.  In the afterword Ellroy speaks much of his mother and how he used the story to find solace in her murder.  The Dahlia was merely an avatar for his own searchings.  Cherchez la femme, after all.

A note on the reading by Stephen Hoye.

I think audiobook narrators are some of the most impressive voice actors around.  Hoye did a brilliant job in this work.  He managed to keep the voice of the characters consistent over the entire 13 hour reading.  Those voices also weren’t distracting.  Over the past summer, listened to E.L. Doctorow’s The March, and many of the voicings came off as hackneyed (though certainly some were on purpose, given the nature of the uneducated Southern characters) but I got none of that feeling from Hoye.  If I were on the fence with a future audiobook of two equal works I wanted to listen to, and one was narrated by Hoye, that decision would be an easy one to make.

Buy this audiobook at Amazon.com.

Buy this audiobook at Barnes & Noble.

DESPEDIDA EM SANGUE

    Em 1958, a mãe de James Ellroy (que tinha dez anos à época), Gineva, foi estrangulada com uma meia de nylon, um assassinato nunca esclarecido.  Vinte e nove anos depois, a obsessão do filho com o crime gerou Dália Negra, romance que explora ficcionalmente uma investigação-fetiche nos EUA e é dedicado à mãe do grande escritor norte-americano, uma “despedida em sangue”.

    O mesmo crime deu origem (dez anos antes de Dália Negra) à outra excelente engrenagem ficcional que remontava aos anos 40: Confissões Verdadeiras, de John Gregory Dunne, que faz tudo o que Agosto de Rubem Fonseca não fez pelos nossos anos 50. Dunne e sua esposa, e ainda melhor romancista, Joan Didion (cujo recente O ano do pensamento mágico é uma  homenagem ao marido que acabara de morrer), adaptaram Confissões Verdadeiras para um ótimo filme de Ulu Grosbard, onde Robert de Niro e Robert Duvall estão magníficos como irmãos. E, como se sabe, Dália Negra foi adaptado por Brian de Palma, revelando-se uma desalentadora surpresa: não se sabe o que aconteceu, como o bolo desandou, porém o velho mestre realizou um trabalho que poderia ser assinado (ou assassinado) por qualquer um, burocrático e distante, a anos-luz de um Intocáveis ou, mais recentemente, de um Olho de Serpente, e principalmente das suas obras com um pé na paródia e na molecagem criativa, que pilha o terreno alheio e cria novos territórios, como Dublê de Corpo.

    E por falar em corpo, o de Elizabeth Short é encontrado na rua 39 esquina com a Norton em janeiro de 47 e vira obsessão para os parceiros Lee Blanchard e Bucky Bleichert (narrador e protagonista), conhecidos como Mr. Fire (Fogo) e Mr. Ice (Gelo), pois como pugilistas adversários conseguiram uma verba importante para o departamento de polícia de Los Angeles; eles fazem parte (depois de maquinações fraudulentas de Lee, mr. Fire, pois ambos são da Divisão de Capturas, e esse é um dado importante no esquema geral) da imensa força-tarefa que investiga o crime. Completando o trio, há Kay, ex-prostituta “amigada” com o fogo (que não arde) e que se apaixona pelo gelo (e é correspondida, mas ele mantém sua lealdade ao parceiro até seu desaparecimento abrupto…).

    Ao seguir sozinho uma pista em bares de lésbicas, Bleichert conhece Madeleine, com a qual a “dália negra” se assemelhava um pouco, e assim se envolve com sua bizarra e criminosa família, cuja fortuna remonta a negociatas nos tempos do cinema mudo, quando o conhecido letreiro, idealizado por Mack Sennet, ainda era Hollywoodland, (as últimas letras são retiradas durante o espaço de tempo da trama, 1946-1950). Além disso, há um “amigo” da família, desfigurado, o que evoca o romance de Victor Hugo, O Homem que Ri (que eu só conheço através da sua adaptação, com Jean Sorel. O enredo é fascinante).

    Elizabeth Short, a dália negra, além de “substituta simbiótica” à mãe de Ellroy, é também uma concentração de ícones norte-americanos: o fetiche pelo cinema, que fazia (e faz) mocinhas inquietas se deslocarem do país inteiro para acabar muitas vezes como prostitutas, a idealização dos G.I. Joes, os que lutaram na 2ª. Guerra (e eram objeto de desejo por parte da morta); e também a mulher-anjo, “perdida no lodo”, ou a femme fatale, no qual os homens projetam suas fantasias, quaisquer que sejam. Não é à toa que seu fantasma persegue Bleichert ao ponto de ele pagar uma prostituta anônima para reencarná-la ou gostar de Madeleine pela semelhança, principalmente na hora da transa. Quando ele consuma sua relação com Kay, uma das formas que Madeleine utiliza para voltar a atraí-lo é sair para noitadas fantasiada de “dália negra”. Eu acho incrível que alguém com a obsessão de Brian de Palma por Hitchcock, demonstrada tantas vezes, não tenha aproveitado esse gancho para relembrar a obsessão de James Stewart em recriar a supostamente morta Kim Novak em Um corpo que cai, de forma tal que ele atormenta a “substituta simbiótica”, vestindo-a e penteando-a para que fique igual à falecida. Possivelmente faltou isso à Dália Negra, o filme: obsessão. Ele é apenas uma sessão de cinema, fácil de ver e esquecer.  E é engraçado notar que um diretor que nunca se destacou por sequer uma mínima marca pessoal como Curtis Hanson conseguiu extrair a essência de Ellroy em Los Angeles- Cidade Proibida, como se tivesse visto ali a grande chance da sua vida.

    O painel de Dália Negra enfatiza igualmente a canibalização do crime pela mídia, a qual praticamente comanda a investigação policial, com a opinião pública exacerbada pelo volume de exposição do caso, e o promotor (Ellis Loew, personagem também de Los Angeles, Cidade Proibida) tentando impedir que vazem notícias sobre a promiscuidade da vítima para não perder a simpatia do público (e futuros eleitores). O caso Isabela é a ilustração mais recente do fenômeno.

   É pena que um escritor tão brilhante seja também tão prolixo. O livro é sensacional até a elucidação do paradeiro de Lee Blanchard, quando mr. Ice o procura no México; depois começa a ficar saturado e quase informe até chegar a um clímax um tanto exagerado e irreal, mesmo amarrando todas as pontas (o que a certa altura parecia quase impossível). A “despedida em sangue” talvez tenha viciado por demais Ellroy: em sua obsessão ele extrapolou ao soltar todos os esqueletos do armário.

___________________________________________

A few things up front: this can’t really be a proper review of James Ellroy’s Blood’s a Rover as I’m less than a 100 pages into it and its over a 600 pages long. So far though, the book is fantastic, and has completely ameliorated my mistaken impression of what, exactly, Ellroy is doing. You see, I had long thought of Ellroy, author of L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia, as a writer of potboiler genre-fiction–which is to say I never considered him a “serious” writer. But when advanced press for Blood’s a Rover came out, I couldn’t help but ask for a review copy. The idea of an alternate history of the late sixties/early seventies, set to a backdrop of black militant movements, Cuban revolution, and heroin dealing, complete with historical figures like Howard Hughes and J. Edgar Hoover seemed pretty cool.

The opening scene of Blood’s a Rover, a breathtaking armored car robbery, quickly establishes the book’s tense, terse pacing telegraphed through Ellroy’s signature simple sentences (his style: subject-verb-object, repeat–with the occasional clause or adjective thrown in for flair). Ellroy’s rhetorical style perfectly matches his plot, as sentence after sentence hammers away depictions of lurid, unrelenting violence. In a sense, Blood’s comes across as the evil twin of Thomas Pynchon’s recent novel Inherent Vice. Both novels threaten to crush the reader under the densities of their plots, yet, where Pynchon allows his hippie detective Doc Sportello’s marijuana haze to infiltrate (and thus lighten) the novel’s discourse, Ellroy’s technique simply compounds and confounds in its ugliness. But don’t be mistaken–Blood’s is a thrilling book, with tightly-drawn characters doing really mean and interesting things. There’s even a sardonic sense of humor under the punchy grisliness of it all. If Pynchon’s universe propels on the paranoia of not knowing but sensing that the Powers That Be are conspiring against you, Ellroy makes it expressly clear that, yes, a sinister cabal of underworld agents are running the show. And not for the better. Even the novel’s hero Wayne Tedrow Jr. is pretty much a creep (or whatever word you want to pick for a heroin runner who kills his dad in a bid for his step mom’s affection)–but he’s a fascinating creep, and in Ellroy’s plotting, one you want to root for.

So, if you’ve had any passing interest in this book, you probably want to go ahead and pick it up. I’ll do a full, proper review when I finish it, but for now, I want to repent for my erstwhile (and unfounded) prejudices against Ellroy. Makes me wonder what other writers I’ve dismissed out of genre prejudice.

Blood’s a Rover is now available in hardback from Knopf.

book by James Ellroy

annotation by Janine Coveney

When I first began reading L.A. Confidential, I thought, Why am I reading this again? I had seen the 1997 film adaptation and enjoyed it; if I hadn’t I would have had a lot more trouble becoming engaged in this sprawling crime novel. This is a fast-paced, intense, testosterone-heavy, violent, detailed, and depressing look at the underbelly of Los Angeles in the 1950s. To some degree I like a good detective yarn, but the racial bias of many of the characters, the portrayal of the female characters as whores and liars (though nobody comes off well in this novel), the complicated plot lines, and ‘50s cop lingo wore me down. I had to create a cheat sheet to follow the characters and the plot, as my mind does not work the way Ellroy’s apparently does. Further, the tangled plot snarls and gruesome murders described in this 492-page tome keep me from sleeping at night.

Here’s what I take away from L.A. Confidential that is helpful to me as a writer:

1. A succinct style. Ellroy writes in a way that has been called “hardboiled” or “telegraphic.” His prose is spare, quick, and dense with information. At times his sentences are fragmented and staccato, which reflect the pace of the action and/or his protagonists’ thoughts. His narrative style fits the mindset of the characters and the tenor of the times, it sets the reader down immediately into that world with authority.

My own writing style tends to be overly descriptive, languidly paced, and too distanced from the characters, so reading this Ellroy yarn is a bracing tonic for what ails me. I can see immediately from this work how a tighter, more eye-level narrative approach would benefit my own writing, particular works with some crime elements.
Still, I find the writing in L.A. Confidential a bit jagged for my taste. Ellroy’s narrative has its own descriptive brilliance, but I wouldn’t call it lyrical. There’s a tension in it that reflects the ongoing tension in the life of a LAPD officer who has to constantly make tough decisions, go where others fear to tread, and deal with armed criminals. In that way, it succeeds.

2. Handling of multiple protagonists. Ellroy follows the lives of three separate policemen in L.A. Confidential: Bud White, Ed Exley, and Jack Vincennes. Each of these men is distinct and has a unique background, personal style, and motivation. Even as a third-person narrator, Ellroy is effective in making us understand how each of these characters thinks and why. He’s also a genius at showing how their stories intertwine, how they exist as pawns on the same chessboard. He was so good at delineating each character that he didn’t even have to name them when he began a chapter—you knew from the rhythm of the narrative whose section it was. For anyone writing a multi-character work, this approach is highly effective.

3. The importance of the universal question for each character. In L.A. Confidential, there are a number of questions and complications that drive the narrative. The overall question is, What really happened at the Nite Owl? White, Exley, and Vincennes are all such good detectives, they can’t help but be drawn by the inconsistencies in the evidence to keep unraveling this mystery years after it has occurred—to their detriment. This is the question that ultimately keeps the reader flipping through the pages.

There are several more questions set up throughout the book that have to do with the personal motivation for each of the characters: what it is they really want. Exley wants power and prestige within the LAPD to impress his distant but powerful father, and also needs to keep up the lie of his wartime heroics. White wants to rid the world of those who would abuse women because of seeing his own mother murdered as a child, and he also wants to get even for what happened to his late partner, Stenslund. Vincennes wants to keep the fact that he’s killed two innocent people buried forever. These desires remain constant throughout the novel for these characters, regardless of what else happens in the book. The flip side of all these desires is fear, because some of their desires are well known but others are hidden. What are the consequences when their motives are revealed? We find out in the novel, so there is a satisfactory cause and effect, an ultimate moment of truth that transforms each characters, after which they are never the same (or no longer living, I guess).

So of course this made me look at my own novel and really try to define in a sentence or two what it is that each of my characters is truly after. What will they sacrifice for and lie for if they have to? How are their desires revealed or concealed? What happens when they get what they are after? This may seem like a basic, but when I begin writing I usually start out with a bunch of characters and a vague idea of where I wanted the story to go. While I have learned to outline the action in my novel, I never previously considered plotting it from the inside out, through each character’s individual motivation.

4. Establishment of common values for the fictional world. Here we have a story about Los Angeles cops where the morality is bent. Our socially accepted norms of good and bad behavior are completely upended in this novel. Cops, sworn to serve the public and the greater good, have to lie, cheat, steal, maim, and even kill for the greater good. Someone like Exley is ridiculed and hated for doing things by the book, because these LAPD officers have to be better criminals than the criminals in order to solve their cases and get their convictions. White beats down suspects to get information, but has a soft spot for women in low places. Vincennes has an unholy alliance with a tabloid paper, and a ceremonial position with a TV show and is treated like a celebrity while carrying out dirty work for the DA. There is a sense of brotherhood between the cops on the beat, but the system forces them to compete and snitch on one another to get ahead. In a place of no values, or lax values, anything can happen in the novel and does.

Since playing by the rules is not appreciated or encouraged, the prevailing values for these fictional cops are: 1) It’s better to be alive than dead, 2) Protect your partner and your sources, and 3) The Negroes did it.*

This made me think about right and wrong, about the choices available to characters: Do the right thing? Pretend to do the right thing? Do the wrong thing and hope nobody finds out? Or do the wrong thing and dare somebody to challenge or punish you? For instance, Exley has set himself up as a standard-bearer for do-gooderism, which is why he struggles to keep the fact that he never actually killed all those Japanese soldiers himself under wraps, and why he keeps his relationship with Mexican rape victim Inez off the radar. In his world, marrying a Mexican is unacceptable. When Vincennes feels he has nothing left to lose, he goes to Loew’s party and blurts out to everyone that he does Loew’s dirty work. This is verboten in their world, but at this point Vincennes has fallen off the wagon and doesn’t care. These are choices that Ellroy made for his protagonists, where each action reveals their true characters: Exley outwardly ambitious but with a covert nature; Vincennes losing his grasp and defying the unspoken code to keep silent about their arrangement.

(*In order for me to get past all the negative references to blacks and Mexicans in this book, I had to constantly remind myself that I was reading about a particular society in a particular point in history. In an interview with Beatrice.com in 1997, Ellroy answered the question about the prejudice of his characters versus his own this way:
• JE: When you have characters that the reader empathizes with, who are carrying the story, saying “nigger” and “faggot” and “spic”, it puts people off. Which is fine. I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers. That’s what I want. There’s part of me that would really like to be one of Dudley Smith’s goons and go back and beat up some jazz musicians, and there’s part of me that’s just appalled .… I figured out a while back that I’m an unregenerate white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual. So are my men. Their racism and homophobia is appalling, but it’s germane to their characters, and people will either get that or not get it. That’s that. You can’t really respond to the press and say, “I’m not a racist or a homophobe.” Nobody’s going to believe you.
(beatrice.com)

To sum up, reading L.A. Confidential represented some interesting craft and narrative ideas in four areas: style, writing from multiple POVs, maintaining the central question of the novel, and establishing the value system that the characters operate within.

This last Saturday (October 10, 2009) I was a guest, along with my friend Bob Salvatore, at the Wordstock festival in Portland, Oregon. This was my first Wordstock, and though I’ve attended different sorts of conventions, book fairs, and conferences before, I have to admit I hadn’t heard of Wordstock until we were invited, several months ago. It was presented to me pretty much like this: “Do you want to go down to Portland one weekend in October and do some kind of event with Bob?”

“Sure,” I agreed, “why not?”

Then as the event got closer I started getting busier at work, farther behind on The Fantasy Author’s Handbook, and started regretting agreeing to go. I’ve always been a little on the shy side—you could call it Social Anxiety if you want to over-aggrandize it—and the closer it got to the day of the event, the whining began in earnest.

Finally it worked out that I would fly into Portland from Seattle on Saturday morning (an adventure in itself, in my first ever flight on a prop-driven commuter plane) get there pretty much just in time to check in, do the event with Bob and a signing after, have dinner with Bob, his wife Diane (who travels with him to conventions and signing tours), and our publicist, Sara Easterly, spend one night in a Portland hotel, then back on the little plane to Seattle.

Okay, I could force myself to do that.

The moment I walked into the convention center in Portland I wished I’d let them fly me in on Friday and out Monday morning so I wouldn’t miss so much of this outstanding event. I freely admit that I’m one of those people who always thinks he’s going to hate everything then leaves giddily surprised by how much fun I had. It’s sad, really. I’m pathologically unable to look forward to anything. Probably nothing thirty years of intensive psychotherapy can’t fix.

The flight from Seattle took fifty minutes —thirty minutes actually in the air—which is the second shortest plane trip I’ve ever taken. The shortest was twenty minutes gate-to-gate from Chicago to Milwaukee the first year I went to Gen Con after moving to Seattle. The Seattle-based travel office at Wizards of the Coast apparently didn’t refer to things like maps and had no idea that by the time you navigate the airports you could drive back and forth between Chicago and Milwaukee twice. Anyway, flying actually is shorter than driving going from Seattle to Portland if for no other reason than neither of those airports are nearly as big as O’Hare. Nothing moves fast at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, except maybe the tempers of the passengers.

When I had been given my itinerary from the Wordstock people it said that the best way to get to the convention center was on Portland’s light rail system. I’m a suburbanite at heart and have never regularly used public transportation. If I’m admitting things, like that I always think I’m going to have a bad time everywhere, I may as well admit that I’m a terrible snob when it comes to public transportation. But something hit me in the air somewhere between Seattle and Portland and I made the completely uncharacteristic decision to go ahead and take the light rail from the airport to the hotel. Anyway, I thought, it’ll save me having to front money for a cab.

Safe landing in Portland and I found the MAX line, and using the instructions in the Wordstock packet, jumped the red line to Pioneer Courthouse Square then their walking directions to the hotel. I was never lost once, the train was actually kinda fun, and there I was.

A shout-out here to the grand old Benson Hotel. Everyone there was terrific and the room had a great feel to it—another reason I wished I’d stayed an extra day or two.

But there wasn’t too much time to settle in. I wanted to figure out how long it would take to get to the convention center via light rail, and if I was lucky, make it in time for a reading by one of my favorite crime authors, James Ellroy (of The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential fame). I came in a few minutes after he’d started but sat in rapt attention to his curmudgeonly, okay maybe a little arrogant, but fascinating talk. He’s quite a showman and could teach more than one author more than a thing or two about how to read his own work.

Best quote of the day—I had to write it down—was from James Ellroy in regards to his  own novel, American Tabloid: “Time Magazine said it was the best book of the year. Would Time Magazine shit you?”

He answered questions and fended criticism with equal aggressiveness. He’s like the dad from Shitmydadsays, but Ellroy swears more. He’s a conservative and I’m not, kind of a prick, too, but I don’t care. I love his books. The guy is the heir apparent of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Read him.

Between Ellroy and the next author I wandered the floor a little, my heart aching for all of the little booths populated by those beautiful, beautiful artifacts of a culture still just trying so damn hard: the literary magazine. I almost swooned with memories of my own long-lost Alternative Fiction & Poetry, and remembered my then-girlfriend, now-wife and I sitting at a little table at something I remember being called Swampfest (but that might not be it) in Madison Wisconsin, punchily joking that we were invisible, and selling three magazines. Fight on, you glorious bastards, you literary magazine publishers. Fight on, comrades.

Then this book propped up on a table caught my eye—wait a minute, I thought. I’d just tweeted (or is it twittered, or twitted . . . whatever) about that book! I’d seen another tweet about it, which led me to a blog that led me to the authors’ web site for the book—and there it was, and there were they. I waited my turn, picked up a copy of the book, and chatted with the co-author, Paul Guinan, while he signed it for me, drawing a picture of the eponymous robot, Boilerplate. Then I paid for it, and you should, too. I’m really not even kidding a little bit. Buy this book. What a great surprise!

After that I wandered back over to the Powell’s stage, which is where Bob and I were scheduled to speak, and the name on the big screen behind this very unassuming, regular guy on stage read Jamie Ford. His name rang a bell, and I hadn’t heard from Bob or Sara yet, so I sat down. Jamie Ford is the author of what is turning out to be one of the darling debut novels of the past few years. I really liked the guy. I liked what he had to say and how he chose to say it. I loved that he talked about his love of James at 15. I thought I was the only one who remembered that one. I only hated him for one thing, he thought of the title Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet before I did. Bastard! That’s a truly great title. I promise, Jamie, I will buy your book, and try not to hold it against you.

During his Q&A, Jamie Ford offered this advice to aspiring authors, which he attributed to someone else who’s name he couldn’t recall: “Allow yourself to suck.” Marvelous advice, which I will steal. Look for it in The Fantasy Author’s Handbook. He elaborated a little. He didn’t mean, of course, that you should intentionally write badly, or attain to writing bad fiction, but you should write. If it’s bad, learn from it and do better next time, and a little better after that, but don’t stop yourself from writing for fear that what you’re writing isn’t good enough. Better a little bad writing that no one ever reads than you don’t write at all and never write Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

I wish I could have stayed for the rest of his presentation, but I was pulled away by my obnoxiously vibrating cell phone. Bob, Diane, and Sara had arrived. I met them at the doors to the convention hall, and we were running a bit early, so we got a chance to walk the space together for a little while. We met a great guy from Powell’s who’s name I wish I could remember. Then we talked to the stage manager for the event, who’s name I wish I could remember. I might need to start carrying a notebook around with me, or ask for people’s cards. As a reporter, I suck, and that aside, I’d have loved to have given these people credit by name. They deserve it.

Anyway, then we went back to the “VIP Room,” which was weird for me. I’m not generally a VIP Room kinda guy. Diane Salvatore and I tried the oxygen bar. It smelled good, but I can’t say it did much else for either of us. Someone gave me a little red pin that read: DON’T BE A PICKY READER, which I pinned to my shoulder bag for all the world to see, because I agree with the sentiment.

We were then summoned to the stage and the talk itself seemed to go by in a flash, though it was an hour long. Bob and I talked about the difference between shared world and novelizations, our fantasy roots, the trials and tribulations of maintaining a shared world and a cast of characters for more than twenty years, the perils and pitfalls of moving the world forward, and we disagreed on World of Warcraft. Hopefully someone recorded it and there’s a transcript available somewhere. I was brilliant, and Bob was pretty good, too.

After our little dog and pony show, Bob and I were hustled off to the signing area where they had a table all set up for us. We had about fifty people in line already, and I was gratified that the people at Powell’s had brought a bunch of copies of A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s The Legend of Drizzt along with The Ghost King, so I had something to sign as well.

Bob signed the first book then a very loud voice came over the PA and in no uncertain terms announced that Wordstock was closed for the night and everyone must leave immediately. This engendered groans from me, Bob, Sara, Diane, the two guys helping us from Powell’s and Wordstock, and the whole line of readers. We all laughingly chose to ignore it. We signed a couple more books then they turned off most of the lights. We pressed on, cheerfully signing in twilight darkness while a security guard circled us like a slightly peckish shark. Finally, one of the Wordstock guys came back and reassured the people waiting in line that there was no problem, they could stay until everyone got their books signed.

The fans were friendly and it was great talking to them. That oddball bit of scheduling—stage interview at 5:00 followed by a signing at 6:00, but the exhibit hall closes at 6:00—was the only weakness exhibited by the Wordstock people, and they cheerfully made it right. No one who wanted a book signed was turned away.

I think we were all in a great mood when we left the darkened Wordstock behind. I wished I could have come back for Sunday’s events, but drowned my sorrows in a fantastic dinner at The London Grill, in the Benson Hotel. Used to be I thought the only reason to go to Portland is to go to Powell’s, which is an unassailably great bookstore, but they’ve got some terrific restaurants, too, and nice people, and a hippy plays guitar and sings next to the Starbucks in the airport, and there’s that great light rail system that even snobby Phil learned to navigate like a local.

Thank you Wordstock and Powell’s. Thank you, Sara. Thank you everybody who made it possible, and I hope you’ll invite me back again. If you don’t, I’ll just pay my own way and show up as a fan.

Wordstock rules!

—Philip Athans

Eldest Son was home from college for the weekend – a most excellent birthday gift for this mom. Hubby picked him up on Friday. He was due back today for a class at noon, so we left gray and early this morning. His college is about a three-hour drive from home.

Other than the weather, a sneeting sort of snow, the drive was uneventful. Hubby drove; Eldest Son and I napped part of the way. We listened to Minnesota Public Radio for part of the drive. On the second half of Mid-Morning, author James Ellroy talked to Kerri Miller as part of Talking Volumes. For a Minnesotan, Talking Volumes is second only to Oprah as a respected place for an author to hawk a book. (For a Minnesotan, maybe it’s even first.)

Ellroy was an interesting fellow to listen to, quite full of himself. He claimed that he doesn’t read other people’s books (with only a handful of exceptions), although he’s been writing more historical fiction lately. As a historian, I wonder how anyone can write anything based on history without, oh, I don’t know …  reading some history. I can’t hold complicated historical facts in my head for longer than a few minutes. I have to make copious notes from my primary sources in order to put together an essay. Maybe Ellroy meant that he doesn’t read other fictional books. He did say that he writes long outlines (over 400 pages for a particular 600-page novel) as part of his process, so maybe I’m missing something.

After stopping at Eldest Son’s dorm so that he could unload his stuff, snarfing down the homemade pizza we brought with, and dropping Son at his class (with the requisite goodbye hugs), Hubby and I were on our way back home. This time there was sneet with periodic bursts of sunlight. Go figure.

On the drive back, we first listened to the Dave Matthews Band’s newest CD, Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King – a birthday present from Hubby and the kids. It is fabulous if you haven’t given it a listen yet. But what’s almost more impressive than the music is the art work, drawings all produced by Dave Matthews. The guy is multi-talented; the art not the work of an amateur. His fantastical, Mardi Gras inspired drawings are so complex that they beg to be stared at for a long time.

After the CD finished, we switched to the radio, tuning in to a station Hubby had discovered on his last drive to pick up Eldest Son – Z 103.3. The station plays the weirdest mix of music, from the Scorpions to the Psychadelic Furs, from Social Distortion to Rob Thomas, from The Monroes to AC/DC. We heard all of these within an hour and were delighted. There’s no rhyme nor reason as to genre, nor does the station repetitively play today’s hits. It seemed to be kind of heavy on the ’80s, which was what we grew up with. WCCO weatherman Chris Shaffer, who often references his passion for ’80s music, would totally dig this station. Unfortunately we lost the signal about 45 minutes from home.

There’s something about long drives that saps the energy out of us, even though it involves copious amounts of sitting. When we arrived home, Hubby and I took a nap. I’m still tired, so will try to go to bed early.