Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Write What You Know

My Dark Places by James Ellroy

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Read as part of CBR11Bingo: Biography/Memoir As I said a few weeks ago in my review of This Storm, I recently met James Ellroy at a book signing. I confess to feeling some intimidation. I’ve heard many stories over the years of Ellroy’s abrasive and forward personality in public. I shared in a social media group about getting ready to meet Ellroy and one guy shared a story about him fat shaming a kid at a book signing. Granted, it was hearsay but in line with […]

Living in the Past

This Storm by James Ellroy

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I met James Ellroy when purchasing this book at a book signing. I was nervous, having heard plenty of stories about his uncouth behavior in public. But he was actually quite nice and gracious with his time. It seems to me that once he rides out his initial wave of anxiety and gets comfortable in a situation, he’s fine. Both of us being Lutheran, we joked about the great Martin Luther; he of course appreciating Luther’s vulgarity towards the Pope. Ellroy makes it clear that […]

The Ties That Bind

Blood's A Rover by James Ellroy

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The conclusion of James Ellroy’s Underworld USA trilogy is probably not the best work of is but it may be one of my favorites. If you haven’t followed along with my reviews, allow me some framing: I have a weird relationship with James Ellroy’s books. LA noirs and overarching American conspiracy are definitely my thing. But for years, I wasn’t able to connect with Ellroy’s style. Not necessarily his writing style, per se, though that often leaves something to be desired. Rather, Ellroy reads were […]

An Entertaining Mess

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To conclude his first LA Quartet, James Ellroy goes back to his roots a little: the entirety of this book is told in the first person as opposed to the shifting points-of-view we usually get from his other stuff. The result is as my headline says: an entertaining mess. When reading the first few chapters, I was relieved to only have to follow one character’s motives instead of three or four. But as with the rest of his books, the plotting here is dense and […]

Greatness

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Read for CBR10Bingo: Book was better. The movie is one of my all-time favorites. This is my first time reading the novel. I’ve read five James Ellroy books in the last few months so if you want my thoughts on my personal evolution towards his works, check past reviews. Having read the tail end of his work and the beginning of what made him popular, I can say with confidence this is the best book he’s written. It’s the perfect merger of his style and […]

Los Angeles Nightmare

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My James Ellroy kick continues, this time with a book that’s more of a horror novel than mystery. Book two of Ellroy’s LA Quartet, this is where he began to find his voice. One could see glimpses in The Black Dahlia of the writer he would become. The Big Nowhere proves he can handle a story with a larger scope than a typical paperback mystery. Ostensibly about the police squeezing the communists who hold the line for unions combating their studio employers, The Big Nowhere manages to mesh in the mob […]



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