Re-Reading James Ellroy 12-28-2020

I have read only two James Ellroy's Brown's Requiem and The Black Dahlia. The Black Dahlia was the first, more than 30 years ago. I just finished re-reading it.

I do not know why I did not read more of Ellroy. I liked what I did read. I have paid attention when his books came out. I remain impressed albeit with some reservations from my re-reading. Revulsion seems to be the predominate emotion of the characters. Yes, I see now I what I may have missed from my first reading are the variations on Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles and the partnership theme of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown's incest plot. Corruption suffuses the story So, yeah, there are plenty enough reasons for revulsion. But credit Ellroy's prose with his use of jazz, for making me feel the cost of all the violence the characters inflict and receive and surrounds them.

Re-reading The Black Dahlia reinforced an idea I have had that the good old days of when men were men and women always mothers never existed and what did exist lacked much worth salvaging. I passed on reading Ellroy but kept on reading Walter Mosely's Easy Rawlins novels. Therein may lay my not reading Ellroy. For all of Mosely writing about a Black man in LA, they feel less nihilistic than Ellroy's white men. I turned out nihilistic enough on my own.

Something to do in the future: catch up with Ellroy and Mosley.

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