Conversations with James Ellroy

An Interview with James Ellroy

3 An Interview with James Ellroy Duane Tucker/1984 From Armchair Detective: A Quarterly Journal Devoted to the Appreciation of Mystery, Detective , and Suspense Fiction (Spring 1984), vol. 17, no. 2. Reprinted by permission of Duane Tucker. With only three novels behind him, James Ellroy must already be considered a major hardboiled writer, an appraisal borne out of the plaudits earned by his first two books. Brown’s Requiem (Avon, 1981) was nominated for a Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” award; Clandestine (Avon, 1982) was nominated for a Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” and won a bronze medal from the West Coast Review of Books. His third novel, Blood on the Moon (Mysterious Press), was just published. All three novels are Los Angeles-set and feature violent, sexually driven heroes; men who are perilously unsympathetic. Beyond that, they differ markedly in texture and scope. Brown’s Requiem is the story of Fritz Brown, an ex-cop car repossessor and a “private eye” in name only, accurately described by a minor character as an “urban barracuda.” In his early thirties and an alcoholic, he has never investigated anything beyond delinquent car payments and when the book opens is nine months into frightening sobriety , waiting for something to happen. Something does happen—a real “case”—and Brown is thrust into the middle of a pervasive spiral of murder, arson, and welfare fraud. He unravels the mystery, opportunistically seizing upon it as a means to avenge his sleazy life, line his pockets, and earn the love of the woman who hovers at the case’s center. In the end, he is rich with blood money but has lost the woman. He has reached for the best within himself, bringing up the most brutal along with it. Winner takes nothing. Editor’s note: There is some discrepancy regarding the authorship of this interview. See introduction. 4 CONVERSATIONS WITH JAMES ELLROY Clandestine is a long novel set in L.A. in the early 1950s. The hero, Fred Underhill, is a young cop who hustles golf for quick money and lonely women for one-night stands. When one of his overnight paramours is found murdered, Underhill, in a rare moment of remorse, begins with an investigation . Soon his real motives surface: he wants glory and promotion to the Detective’s Bureau. Underhill’s ambition gets him (temporarily) what he wants—but the price in innocent lives destroyed is great. Along the road toward the capture of the killer, he falls in love, and the relationship between Underhill and Lorna Weinberg, a crippled Deputy D.A., provides the depth and scope which makes Clandestine a major departure from Brown’s Requiem. Blood on the Moon, a contrapunctually structured, present-day thriller, told from the viewpoints of a psychotic mass murderer of women and the womanizing police detective obsessed with his capture, is a thematic and stylistic departure from both of Ellroy’s previous books, a relentless story of a twenty-year reign of terror. Just published, it reads like Cornell Woolrich out of Joseph Wambaugh out of tabloid journalism and seems certain to arouse controversy for its graphic depiction of L.A. cop/criminal life. I met with James Ellroy at his furnished basement “pad” in a large house adjoining a golf course in Eastchester, New York. He is a tall, strongly built man of thirty-six who sports loud, preppy clothes and a continual grin. While we spoke, his landlady’s Siamese cat stared at us with what Ellroy called “ikon eyes.” Interviewer: Thank you for consenting to this interview. Ellroy: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to flap my jaw on my two favorite subjects—my books and myself! Interviewer: Ha! Getting down to business, you’ve covered a great deal of both narrative and stylistic ground in the course of three novels. Brown’s Requiem was a tight private eye story, Clandestine a long, discursive period tableau, Blood on the Moon a psychological thriller cum police procedural. Most young genre writers stick to one formula. You haven’t. Why? Ellroy: Quite simply, the storylines of my three books required different styles, and I simply put on paper what the story dictated. The story always comes first with me, and it dictates the thrust of my characterizations. As for the diverse thematic contained in my books, again the story dictated theme and moral substance. Beyond that, of course, I was looking for the strongest possible voice. For now, I think I...