Bob Randisi:
<<I was never able to get into T. Jeff Parker's work
until I read WHERE SERPENT'S LIE and THE BLUE HOUR. I gave
him a second chance.>>
Have your red The Triggerman's Dance? To my mind, it's a
masterpiece, one of the best things I've read in recent
years. This writer could never be accused of technical
inadequacy: he's rock-solid.
Now to Ellroy: What you see as technical weakness, I see as
originality of voice. After all, many great writers have been
accused of a defective technique, from Cervantes to Faulkner
to Grass. Cervantes's work, for example, is full of
interpolations, errors of fact (names change, for example)
and digressions, and his sentences are not "elegant" in a
literary sense. However, when you read them *aloud*, they
come alive and are as fresh and real today as when he wrote
them. Likewise, Faulkner comes alive when you speak his
novels and stories. His work bites. The same goes for Ellroy,
and therein lies the force of his work. I am not saying that
he is a literary genius, or even as good as, say, Gores,
Constantine, Higgins, or Leonard at their best, but there is
a lot more in his work than "shock value". Have you read his
The Big Nowhere? If not, I recommend it (I think it's his
masterpiece).
Regards,
mt
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