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James Ellroy
The 'Demon Dog' - In his own words.

"Boy's mother murdered. Boy's life shattered. Boy grows up homeless alcoholic jailbird. Jailbird cleans up and writes his way to salvation. Jailbird becomes the Mad Dog of American Crime Fiction."
 		 Stuff stuffed in this section
The 'Demon Dog' - about the man himself
Those dark places - key works, bibliography and links
Black Dahlia A-Z- the full character list for the novel

 

        
   


Photos reproduced by kind permission, © Chris Saunders  http://www.cmsaunders.free-online.co.uk/index2.html
         
By the age of ten, Ellroy had two major career influences; Jack Webb's The Badge, a history of the LAPD, given to him my his father. And the murder of his mother.

Rough living and jail time followed; drink, drugs and reading crime novels dominated his life until he was thirty. 		  Sobering up and working as a golf caddy, he began to plot out what would be his
first novel, Brown's Requiem. Followed by Clandestine, the impact of his mother's death in his work becomes self-evident.

His work develops through the Lloyd Hopkins trilogy, the LA Quartet and the ongoing  Underworld USA trilogy		   Several of his books have been turned into movies; much of his writing for GQ has been released in two volumes.

Ellroy eviscerates the body of staid crime fiction; what hits the ground isn't pretty but it's certainly arresting. 

 		        
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