Fred and Loathing on The Internet

The Lousy Detective Choked on A Pretzel Because He Could Not See The Twist

2024-Jun-08

Although it was mentioned in the last blog post that the X-Men stuff would have more than one entry, it will arrive on a later date. Instead, today we will be talking about a volume of the incredibly bombastic writings of James Ellroy; American Tabloid.

Published in the mid 90s. It reached high enough acclaim to be named book of the year by several reputable periodicals of the time, including Time magazine. I wonder how far in the future this book could have pleased the professional critic class that votes on ‘book of the year’ awards. It certainly would not guess it would garner adulation from contemporary (2024) book critics. If they did, then they would have suddenly got cool with the use of the n-word uttered by white characters authored by a white writer. Boy, this book is frank with the verbal expression of the attitudes of powerful white guys, criminal or upstanding, in the USA during the mid-20th century.

I suppose the curious biography of James Ellroy gives the author some leeway among the critics, if they were privy to the facts of his upbringing. His manner in interviews is most definitely more dynamic than anything I’ve ever seen in a contemporary award winning novelist. Had he appeared on David Letterman to hock whatever novel he was selling, the child version of me would definitely find him amusing. As if a character in his own novels.

My first dip into the ultra-cynical literary universe of James Ellroy’s novels was The Black Dahlia, an early hit in his career, published in 1987. I had heard he was a writer that carried the sharp wit of Raymond Chandler stories about clever detectives bumping into rich people’s vices. That book did it for me good in a noir sort of way. Found it enchanting enough to cause me to seek out the first novel of his I could find from the library. Rarely do I go back to back on the same author. I quickly tore through The Big Nowhere, another one he wrote very early in his career, before finding lucrative success in selling novels.

How similar I found Big Nowhere to Black Dahlia put me off from immediately seeking a third book of his. I very much enjoyed the frank macho style he used for internal monologue and enjoyed the delayed gratification of the difficult to pick up slang in the 1950s LA dialogue. The Big Nowhere felt like a prototype for what I predicted most of his stories would be about, even though I loved how he presented them on the page. I’ve read enough hard boiled novels so a third of his would come in due time.

In due time was a few years later. I read Perfidia when it was new in the hardcover sections of bookstores in December of 2013. I had not been jumping at the idea of reading his brand new novel, but a free book will change my mind. That book definitely felt like James Ellroy was definitely smoking stronger stuff than what fueled his nascent career as a noir writer in the late 80s. Perfidia was a jump from the prototype I saw in Dahlia and Big Nowhere about an anti-hero LA cop trying to make a personal difference in a dirty world of booze, broads, and bullets.

Perfidia was a novel that was a jump into noir so sensational it could be satire. Every main character in Perfidia was the dirtiest cop from other noir novels. An all-star game of dirty patrol sergeants, vice squad detectives, and captains of the LAPD. Celebrities of the time were also thrown into the wringer of greed, sex, and murder underlying the Los Angeles of 1941 in James Ellroy’s sick sad word. What Perfidia also offered what the previous two novels of his I read was an increased scope to the world outside of Los Angeles. The reach of the characters in Perfidia as superbly corrupt members of the LAPD extended into national politics. What before I saw in Ellroy novels were tiny tawdry characters scraping against the big evil elites that pull the strings behind noir stories. Perfidia gives you all the answers, with plenty of bombast, as to what exactly are the corrupt machinations that anti-hero detectives are traipsing into in most hard boiled detective novels.

What I like about reading deeper into his novels is the shared universe of dirty secret deals underlying controversial historical events. A somewhat hidden noir world exists behind the unproven acts of recorded US history in James Ellroy’s USA..The sweeping noir universe that 100 Bullets beautifully dangles in the first half of that series falter, while Ellroy’s dirty literary world stays convincing throughout every iteration I have read of Jame Ellroy’s novels. What I found dissatisfying about the second half of the comic books series 100 Bullets, written by David Mazzachuli, was the actual answers he delivered as to how this secret noir world, shown glimmers of in the first half, actually operates. The explanations he gives as to what the game's characters were playing sounded to me not only childish, but also without any impact demonstrated to the world they ‘controlled’.

The answers that James Ellroy delivers as to who secretly runs the world teeters on the edge of noir absurdity. The writing moves fast enough on its toes to avoid me noticing my disgust with just how cynical the author expects every politician and celebrity to behave behind closed doors. Instead I’m hooked on the novelty of hearing who’s the next famous figure who could appear in this cheap literary showcase of important people doing dirty things.

American Tabloid is very well named. I have yet to read any of the other novels in the four-piece collection this novel began. This era brought the setting of his stories out of his native Los Angeles and into the greater US landscape. This particular novel makes scenic stops all over the country. The nexus of all the action hovers around the Florida-Cuba area during the Kennedy administration. Up to the day of the very end of that presidential administration. Los Angeles makes a remarkable lack of appearances, with Hollywood hardly being a factor at all. Howard Hughes, and just about every wild rumor you heard about him during the 60s, are what bring the story to its brief visits to the city of angels, or California at all.

Much how I described Perfidia as having every protagonist being the abject stereotype of a corrupt cop, American Tabloid is a vindication of every lurid conspiracy you had heard about anything that happened in the USA between 1959-1963. Whatever wild joke your drunk uncle told you about JFK’s sexual appetites, or about closet homosexual actors, or incredibly promiscuous pop musicians. They’re all true within these novel’s pages! In between these sleazy facts being dealt out are the efforts of the amoral less-than-anti-heroes types moving the story forward with their violent initiative.

Once again, Ellroy chooses either handsome or burly qualities for the pair of capable protagonists he uses to tell his story of why the Bay of Pigs was such a disaster and why President John Kennedy’s death was a means to punish his brother, the Attorney General. Charm or strength are necessary qualities for protagonists of stories such as American Tabloid. Page after page finds them shooting Cubans, buying dope, lying to the CIA about how much dope was bought, shooting more Cubans to cover-up a private dope deal not sanctioned by the CIA. Having such capable characters for the writer to wield around gives him more options as to what just could happen in such twisted hands.

Usually I think I know just about all the ugly stories there are. These stories are usually the seed of all noir stories. Ellroy makes whole new fuckin’ stories. Like DeSade or William Blake, Ellroy refines wisdom from a big bulk of noir excess. Ellroy knocks it up another notch, finding new material despite coming off as ludicrous on occasion in the process. I’ll say he keeps me interested enough to see just what more he has to say. The hardboiled detective story he did so well early in his career is no longer holding him back. Now this peculiar bastard can write about the whole world and spread his muck around.