Maybe Iąm late, maybe some of you already mentioned it...In any case here it
is the latest from JE in the Guardian...and there is also a
trying-to-be-hip-very-hard video at that same site:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fict
ion/article6915849.ece
Montois
From The Times
November 14, 2009
The conversation: James Ellroy
The celebrated crime writer reveals that after his last book led to a
breakdown, drugs and divorce, this time he has his demons in check
Stefanie Marsh
Some illuminating pre-interview James Ellroy research shows: łAmericaąs
greatest living crime writer˛ (some would root for Elmore Leonard) feigning
joyful masturbation for the benefit of the Playboy Channel outside the house
where a girl he used to spy on as a teenager once lived; Ellroy growling at
the presenter of a radio show, łNo, Iąm not mellow. I floss with barbed wire
and gargle with the Aids virus˛; Ellroy showing off about the size of his
łdonkey dick˛; Ellroy telling the whole world that, artistically speaking,
he is rivalled only by Beethoven.
To me it all sounds like chest-beating self-aggrandisement in the style of a
wrestling champ. And certainly his fans, and there are hundreds of thousands
of them, lap up the alpha male, genius writer, tough-guy rhetoric.
But there is a minority who take offence at his perceived grandiosity (the
word łjerk˛ comes up often on internet threads), and even his admirers,
literary critics among them, have been known to find fault with his heavily
abbreviated writing style, and his use of homophobic and racist language, a
claim he seldom feels the need to justify.
Alongside the Playboy video is a series that Ellroy has written entitled Why
I Chase Women, in which he describes himself as a łtenuously reformed
pervert˛ and details his messy adolescence, chaotic relationship with drugs
and alcohol, and his overwhelmingly obsessive relationships with women,
including the odd prostitute.
Helen Knode, his second wife and best friend, nicknamed him ła zoo animal˛,
while they were still together. When the marriage broke down, she told him:
łYou drove around Carmel in shit-stained trousers. My parents heard you
jacking off upstairs. You peeped women while you walked Dudley [the dog].˛
I assumed he was going to be a handful.
But in the plush Langham Hilton, Ellroy appeared tall, slightly
hunch-shouldered, dapper, bald, energetic and bespectacled. I later watched
him being interviewed by the cultural commentator Mark Lawson and expect
that he would have behaved very differently had I been a man. Lawson, all
British tea-parlour politeness, soldiered on in small-talk mode, unable to
cope with Ellroyąs habit of, I think unconsciously, baring his teeth in an
appearance of light menace and batting away questions with one word answers,
usually łNo˛.
But in the Langham, the Demon Dog of American literature behaved as genially
as a puppy: chivalrous, engaging, kind, warm, every word carefully chosen.
How infuriating. Where was the obnoxious, at times juvenile, man who, not
seven months ago, had feigned masturbation for a soft porn site?
łThe interview for Playboy had no dignity,˛ he said, with the air of a
person who has awoken remorsefully with a hangover. łI was encouraged to
exercise the worst aspects of my rude behaviour. Iąm an accomplished public
performer and I can act. And I go on book tours and Iąm like a dog cut off
its leash.
"I spend a great deal of time on my own and Iąm very serious in my pursuits,
and put a camera in front of me or put me in front of an audience and Iąm
there to convert, to seduce, to take over, to dominate and I can be harsh
and I can be domineering and I can be brusque. And Iąm learning to be less
so.˛
Why bother, if the persona works?
łItąs just a better way to be. It puts fewer people off and Iąm trying to
grow up. Yeah. At no loss of youth or vigour, Iąm just trying to grow up.˛
Ellroy is now 61. But he never tires of talking about the pivotal moment of
his life, the rape and murder of his mother in Los Angeles, when he was 10.
The rest you should do yourself the favour of reading about in My Dark
Places, a terrifically crafted memoir that I suspect women enjoy more than
something like American Tabloid or L. A. Confidential, complex and macho
novels that require a working knowledge of mid-20th-century American
history, slang, conspiracy theories and politics.
His early erotic attachment to his mother, his desire to know her and
understand the motivations for her murder, and an abstract wish to live in
the period in which she was killed are explored most explicitly in Why I
Chase Women, which will appear in book form next year under the title The
Hilliker Curse (Hilliker is his motherąs maiden name). But the same themes,
it transpires, also drive his new novel Bloodąs a Rover, if in more
roundabout, semi-disastrous ways. łIt ripped my f***ing heart out,˛ he says.
łI didnąt think I could go on much longer at certain points while I was
writing that book.˛
One of the joys of interviewing Ellroy is that there is none of that
paranoid guardedness you get with so many male authors. We move swiftly on
to a second turning point in his life, a breakdown he had in 2001. It began
innocuously enough with a spell of insomnia and morphed into an addiction to
sleeping pills and hypochondria. He spent an unsuccessful spell in a health
retreat being slathered with healing oils and doing transcendental
meditation. And when antidepressants didnąt work, he went into meltdown.
The whole thing was brought on, he says, by łknowledge of ultimate
incapacity and death, suppressed emotion, unexpressed sexuality, romantic
longing, a life lived very, very, very hard˛. He was also working like a man
possessed, promoting the prequel to Bloodąs a Rover, The Cold Six Thousand,
which łbegan all the events that lead to all the horror. I was exhausted.
Even a phone call was taxing. I had money. I didnąt particularly need to
work, I had film jobs, I was trying to sleep around the clock. I needed to
rest. I needed to shut 55 years of very, very hard-lived life off.˛ Most of
all, łI needed to fantasise, I needed to have crushes on women. I mean, I
never acted on them, I was entirely honourable.˛
He produces for me his list of infatuations: Anne Manson, the former
principal conductor of the Kansas Philharmonic; a lesbian FedEx courier; and
the Swedish mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. łThe strangest group of
women ever. I just needed to go off by myself and drink coffee and think.˛
Coffee notwithstanding, his breakdown put an enormous strain on his marriage
to Knode, culminating in her suggestion of a more open arrangement. Given
his compulsive romanticism, she might have foreseen what happened next. As
he says, łYou shouldnąt offer a guy like me a deal like that because Iąll do
it˛. Anyway, he had soon met and become fanatically engrossed with a woman
who he decided to turn into a character in Bloodąs a Rover.
łI was 56,˛ he said. łI didnąt have anybody. I didnąt have any ... body. And
it was the strangest, most pathetic place to be. Helen hated me at the time.
And I met this woman and I should have smelt misalliance, potential
obsession ... and then at a certain point I had to reveal to Helen Iąm
seeing someone, itąs OK, she initiated the deal, it wasnąt a cheat or
infidelity and Iąm an all-or-nothing kind of guy and I left. I wanted to be
with her and we wanted to have a child.˛
It was a disaster, of course. Ellroy was needy to the point of delirium and
would have panic attacks whenever left on his own: łYeah, and Iąm a big
f***ing shit-kicking A-type American guy.˛ Probably wisely, his new partner
terminated the relationship and Ellroy swiftly found himself relocating to
New York. One hardly needs to ask why. łAt a reading performance I had
spoken to a woman for two minutes. And, why not? Why not move 500 miles
because thereąs some woman you met for two minutes in a chaste
conversation?˛
Well, I could think of plenty of reasons. None of these remotely fazed her
new paramour: łItąs just this motif, I always tend to get what I want, and
all Iąve ever wanted was to write great books, live a big life, know God and
commune with women of great substance. And Iąm disarming. Itąs not an
unreasonable goal if you look at it from a certain standpoint. I donąt want
to be President of the United States. I donąt want to be a rockąnąroll star.
I donąt want to chase showgirls or do anything stupid like that.˛ In the end
the relationship didnąt work out but the pair are still friends and she also
went on to become a central character in the book.
From an authorąs view itąs all very well to draw from real life. But is he
so sure that these women were keen on being immortalised in this way? łI
intended nothing but love for these two women. It didnąt pan out that way,˛
Ellroy says. łI could have slunk away, been cowardly, or I could honour them
by doing what I do best, which is write fiction.˛
What Ellroy does magnificently is draw key moments from history to interpret
the events of the time, in the case of the Underworld USA trilogy, the years
spanning 1958-1972. His fiction, he says, is approximately one third fact,
which he uses to stand up every mid-20th century American conspiracy youąve
ever heard: JFK was killed by the Mob; Martin Luther Kingąs assassination
was linked to the head of the FBI. How conspiracy-minded is Ellroy?
Not at all, he says, though the idea for the Underworld trilogy sprang from
Don DeLilloąs reading of the JFK assassination in his book Libra. On Kingąs
death, Ellroy says: łFBI men have wondered how James Earl Ray managed to
stay out of prison with impunity for over a year and assassinate Martin
Luther King and was as stupid as a brick, and always seemed to have money.
So I do sense a collusion.
"And I do sense repressive factions coming together to quash revolution and
also I make the case in Kingąs case, even though I revere the man above all
other 20th-century Americans, that he was losing a little bit in the last
years of his life. I think because he had been so courageous for so long
that he just wanted relief from all this suffering.
"So heąs down at the garbage workersą rally in Memphis and gets shot. He was
becoming more demanding, more grandiose and turning a lot of his supporters
against him. So what I felt upon research was just a convergence of
dissatisfaction and word passing here to here to here, and somebody shoots
him.˛
Living in the past as Ellroy does with such relish must make the present
seem terribly dull. Yes, contemporary life, he says, shocks and bores him.
łSatire irks me; irony irks me; nihilism irks me; loud, discordant music
irks me. I find the canonisation of rockąnąroll especially puerile:
institutionalised rebelliousness of the worst sort. Yeah. I canąt believe
the staying power of rockąnąroll when you can listen to classical music or
jazz. Iąm not a misanthrope, but I crave peace and quiet or intense
rapport.˛
He avoids łdistractions˛ such as newspapers and television. What little he
claims to know about current affairs, he says, he picks up inadvertently
from the plague of televisions that have invaded restaurants in the US. łThe
American language has become horribly mangled. Especially among young women,
itąs as if feminism never existed. Young women in LA ‹ pierced, lacquered,
varnished, enhanced, tattooed ‹ they could not have coarsened themselves
more. Itąs only a brief moment before they say Śitąs likeą or ŚIąm likeą.˛
To illustrate his point he recalls a conversation he recently overheard: łA
young woman was trying to tell her friend that she had turned down the
advances of a suitor. And she couldnąt even say, ŚI rejected himą. She said:
ŚItąs like, itąs like, itąs like, like, I'm like, itąs like ... No!' It was
the most amazing thing! So you have a full generation now who sound
equivocal, mitigating, befuddled, unable to exposit their lines in any kind
of direct language whatsoever. Whatsoever!˛
One suspects that he is particularly angry about this state of affairs
because befuddled women are exactly the kind he doesnąt find attractive and
so his pool of potential fantasy figures has become dramatically reduced.
But who is to blame?
łKinetic art, I think, is partially at play.˛
What does he mean by kinetic art?
łMovies are very, very fast-paced. I tried to watch one of the Bourne
thrillers with Matt Damon. Couldnąt watch it, felt like I was having a
coronary. And the vulgarity of reality television shows. People seem to be
proud to be stupid. Iąm just not a liberal and Iąm trying not to mess with
peopleąs heads as much as I used to. Iąm trying. Yeah.˛
This idea of redemption and the reformed character are key themes in his
life and his work: itąs there in Bloodąs a Rover in the form of an
unprecedentedly hopeful ending and itąs there when he says, repeatedly, that
heąs trying to grow up, and that this time heąs found The One, a woman
called Erika.
What about the tenuously reformed pervert. Is that still him?
łIąm a son of a woman who was raped and murdered. Itąs core-deep with me.
Itąs suffused with discernment and I grew up in an era of privation and so
sex wasnąt available and the era of privation, fuelled by my unhygienic
state and lack of social skills, induced a great gratitude for me when I
finally grew up and changed my life a little bit. And it fuels me still.
Iąve never lost a teenage boyąs awe pertaining to sexuality. Itąs the old
joke, ŚI want to find the guy who invented sex and ask him what heąs working
on nową. It says it all. It Says It All. I live there.˛
Which I suppose explains why, when I asked him whether in Erika heąd at last
found peace of mind, he suddenly looked quite agonised: łThere is a sob in
my throat from here on up for women and at times itąs almost unbearable,˛ he
gasped. łItąs just f***ing unbearable.˛ I believe him, although I doubt itąs
the first time heąs said so to a female interlocutor ‹ itąs the kind of
save-me vulnerability that so many women find irresistible.
Half an hour later heąs on stage, thrilling his predominantly male fans with
his all-American alpha male act. The talk is all conspiracy theories and the
Mob. Heąs a womanąs man but a manąs writer. And, surrounded by men, there is
no trace of the impulsive, complicated, mother-struck, lunatic romantic that
will always be lurking underneath.
Biography
James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His mother was raped and
murdered when he was 10. He was expelled from school and was dishonourably
discharged from the army just before his father died. By 18 he was living on
the streets, drinking heavily, taking drugs and involved in petty crime.
After rehab he worked as a golf caddy and published his first novel, Brownąs
Requiem, at 30. He earned critical acclaim for the L. A. Quartet and wrote a
memoir, My Dark Places, an attempt to trace his motherąs killer. The
self-described best crime writer in the world has written 18 books. He has
been married twice and lives in Kansas City.
Small talk
On his writing
I want to move people. I want to obsess people. I want people to live at the
extreme mental pitch that I work at when I write a book.
On Los Angeles
Itąs uncivilised: there are too many cars, too many people. Parkingąs a pain
in the ass.
On language
The idiom has always lived in me. Alliteration, Yiddish, racial invective,
hipster talk, general profanity, itąs been there and Iąve always loved words
and Iąve always been talking to myself and having conversations with myself
when no one else is in the room.
On Beethoven
Thereąs a 20-minute piece of Beethoven that describes the conjunction of men
and women for me. Itąs the third movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata. Itąs
the most sublime slow movement in solo instrumental history.
James Ellroy is the author of Bloodąs a Rover, which is published by Century
(Arrow Books Ltd)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 17 Nov 2009 EST