[contextly_auto_sidebar id="oWUL3zIX6tkrbLbqzzcrPNH15S6oj1MP"] HOW does the new Ellroy novel, Perfidia, shape our thinking of his career? How has he changed as a writer? How does he fit in to noir's history, and has he changed the field? These questions were on my mind while I was writing a recent profile of the edgy novelist, so I asked J. Kingston Pierce, editor of The Rap Sheet crime fiction … [Read more...]
James Ellroy: The Demon Dog is Back
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="J9S6BFoEKctFIUF9sCOFryBh5uvOWyC0"] AFTER completing his Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy and writing a memoir about his often tortured relationships with women, crime writer James Ellroy is back with a new quartet of novels that will serve as a prequel to his Los Angeles Quartet -- the four great novels that include L.A. Confidential. A few days ago, I hung out with … [Read more...]
"James Ellroy’s LA: City of Demons"
CRIME novelist James Ellroy is hosting a new television show that goes up Wednesday night. He's both perfect for this -- who's written about crime in the Southland better than Ellroy? (All due respect to Ross Macdonald, Robert Crais, and a few others.) But his manic intensity also makes him a strange fit for television -- he can be a bit too much onscreen.The show looks at both classic LA murders … [Read more...]
Christopher Nolan’s Early Years
About a decade ago I was tipped off to an odd, inscrutable film by a budding English director living in LA. Christopher Nolan's Memento, which starred Guy Pearce in an ill-fitting pale suit and bleached hair, knocked me out, and I spent an afternoon talking about movies, memory and fragmented narrative with the 30-year old director at his apartment near the LACMA while he played Radiohead's Kid A … [Read more...]
"LA Confidential" in Mexico
THE Misread City just landed in Guadalajara, where an enormous book festival will pack in 500,000 or so by week's end.Tonight I took in a panel on one of the best movies ever made about Los Angeles -- "LA Confidential." Actually, it was just die-hard Angeleno David Kipen interviewing the film's director, Curtis Hanson, but the conversation was quite revealing.Hanson talked about his fight with … [Read more...]
Chasing Women with James Ellroy
OVER the last year or so i've been lucky enough to hang out with james ellroy, self-proclaimed demon dog of american crime fiction, including a bizarre/memorable dinner at taylor's steakhose at which the author insisted i bring along some good looking women.because he always seems to be on camera -- barking like a dog, offering off-color anecdotes and ethnic jokes, and generally acting out -- it … [Read more...]