Synopses & Reviews
In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother and himself.
In My Dark Places, our most uncompromising crime writer author of American Tabloid and White Jazz tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten and to reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is an epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.
Review
"My Dark Places is a genre-busting, oddball classic. A creepy primer on murder one...it's also packed with enough raunchy mother love to make you want to wash your hands between chapters. And Ellroy's rat-a-tat-tat narration gives his self-lacerating account a sense of brakeless free fall. This is literary necrophilia that Poe might envy. Ellroy is a haunted man, and more than writer enough to haunt anyone who hears his tale." Malcolm Jones, Newsweek
Review
"Much of the memoir is taken up with a detailed account of the doomed investigation. But at the heart of the work is Mr. Ellroy's tortured attempt to resurrect his mother ('to dance with the redhead,' as he puts it), to repair his stupendous loss and to piece himself together in the process. What he has produced can't be neatly categorized. It is a kind of hard-boiled Bildungsroman; and it may be the mother of all mother-and-son stories." Bruce Jay Friedman, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Ellroy's search for her killer ultimately became a quest for his mother's true identity. A cathartic journey for Ellroy that will appeal to his readers." Library Journal
Synopsis
"Astonishing . . . original, daring, brilliant."
--Philadelphia Inquirer
In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb.Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running.He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself.
In My Dark Places, our most uncompromising crime writer tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten--and reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is a epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.
"Ellroy is more powerful than ever."
--The Nation"
Synopsis
The internationally acclaimed author of the L.A. Quartet and The Underworld USA Trilogy, James Ellroy, presents another literary masterpiece, this time a true crime murder mystery about his own mother. In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself.
In My Dark Places, our most uncompromising crime writer tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten--and reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is a epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.
"Ellroy is more powerful than ever."
--The Nation
"Astonishing . . . original, daring, brilliant."
--Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
James Ellroy, the undisputed master of crime writing, has teamed up with the Los Angeles Police Museum to present a stunning text on 1953 LA. While combing the museumandrsquo;s photo archives, Ellroy discovered that the year featured a wide array of stark and unusual imageryandmdash;and he has written 25,000 words that illuminate the crimes and law enforcement of the era. Ellroy o ffers context and layers on wild and rich atmosphereandmdash;this is the cauldron that was police work in the city of the tarnished angels more than six decades ago. More than 80 duotone photos are spread throughout the book in the manner of hard-edged police evidence.and#160;
About the Author
James Ellroy is the award-winning author of 18 books, including The Black Dahlia, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz, American Tabloid, and The Cold Six Thousand. Ellroyandrsquo;s new novel, Perfidia,was published by Alfred A. Knopf in September 2014. Housed in the oldest surviving LAPD station, the Los Angeles Police Museum chronicles the formation and development of the LAPD from its beginnings in 1869. Glynn Martin has been in and around the LAPD for more than 30 years and has served as the museumandrsquo;s executive director for more than a decade.