Re: RARA-AVIS: Ellroy

From: Michael Robison ( zspider@gte.net)
Date: 20 Nov 2002


John Lau wrote to Ivan in response to him saying he wasn't gonna touch an Ellroy book with a 10-foot stick after what I said about him:

> now that is utter foolishness. while Ellroy clearly isn't for everyone,
or
> may grow tiresome with over-exposure, he is nonetheless one of the most
> important writers working in the genre today, for good reason. he has his
> own voice, and he's expressing his own inner demons. while I can see that
> some may not like the sound of that voice, or be shown those demons, at
least
> he isn't merely retracing Chandler's footsteps. I think the important
thing
> to take from miker's amusing comment about the shit encrusted dildo, is
that
> he's read two or three thousand pages of the man's work. there has to be
> something there for even a voracious reader like miker to stick with that
> long.

************** Yeah! What John said! You can hate Ellroy or you can love him, but you can't deny that he is a major player in the hardboiled field nowadays. And I think that if you want to have a feel for what's going on in the genre, you have to read him. If for no other reason, at least enough so you can say you hate him. He is a powerful writer and he weaves good characters into a complex plot. When the right month rolls around on our decade-by-decade thing, I hope to reread THE BLACK DAHLIA and WHITE JAZZ.

Hey! I got this trivia thing thats bothering me. There's a scene where they go into a club and eat barbecue and the hip thing to do is wipe your greasy fingers in the little black kid's hair. Hahaha! That's outrageous! Is that scene in WHITE JAZZ or Earl Thompson's GARDEN OF SAND?

miker

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