Conversations with James Ellroy

James Ellroy and David Peace in Conversation

212 James Ellroy and David Peace in Conversation David Peace/2010 From the Guardian (London), 9 January 2010. Reprinted by permission. Interviewer: Pete Bondurant appears as a minor character in White Jazz and then becomes one of the principal characters in American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand—is that where the spark for the whole Underworld U.S.A. trilogy came from? With you wanting to run with this character, to see where Pete took you? Ellroy: There was an overlap that began with my reading of Don DeLillo’s novel Libra. I saw that it was so superbly done that I couldn’t write another book specifically about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But that’s when I began to see that the harbingers of the assassination started to percolate in ’58. And I saw that I could do a book where the assassination could be a concluding event, but appear off-stage. And then turn it into a trilogy. So I was originally going to use the real-life private eye Fred Otash, who’s been a supporting character in three or four other books, but I was going to pay him because I didn’t trust him. Interviewer: Is he dead now? Ellroy: Yes, he’s dead now. So I could’ve used him for free. But I had already created Big Pete, so I decided to use him. Interviewer: Did you write American Tabloid knowing it would be the first book of a trilogy? Ellroy: As I began the finishing of Tabloid, I saw that it was a trilogy, and I saw that the second book would be the big book about the ’60s. DAVID PEACE / 2010 213 Interviewer: Had you also envisaged the third book? Ellroy: Not in any kind of detail, no. Because the politics and the social upheaval of America during the ’60s are so obvious—you’ve got the antiwar protests, the civil rights movement, the racism of the South, Howard Hughes buying up Las Vegas—I had a lot of it right at the gate. But when you go into 1972, as this book [Blood’s a Rover] does, it’s less charted territory. Interviewer: At what point did you decide on the various timeframes for each novel? Ellroy: I had decided to end the first two books with the assassinations (of J.F.K. in 1963, and Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in 1968), and then the death of Hoover in ’72 unfolded as the logical conclusion to the trilogy. Interviewer: These are huge stories, huge histories. What are your research methods? Ellroy: They are threadbare. I hire researchers who compile factsheets and chronologies for me, so that I won’t write myself into error. And then I extrapolate , fictionally. Which is what you do; you just extrapolate . . . Interviewer: Well, I use the library a lot more; I spend a year in the library. And then the fiction comes. So I admire your ability to do this without a net . . . Ellroy: I like to lie in the dark, Mr. Peace. I just lie in the dark and I . . . think. And history has been kind to me. I am a good thinker. I am a single-minded man. I spend so much time . . . do you have a family? Interviewer: Yes, I do. Ellroy: I don’t have a family. I’ve never had a family. It’s the strangest thing. I am sixty-one years old. I’m very healthy. I am more obsessed with women than I’ve ever been. And I’ve finally met the woman. I’ve finally met her. But I’m the guy with no place to go on Christmas and Easter that ends up getting, you know, some pitiful invitation, shit like this. So I spend a lot of time alone, thinking. And I avoid the culture. I don’t go to movies. I don’t read newspapers. Here’s what I mean: I’m not a rich man. I pay alimony. I pay taxes. But I don’t have to support a family. So I have this assistant. So I don’t have to go to the fucking store. I don’t have a computer. She does my email. 214 CONVERSATIONS WITH JAMES ELLROY Interviewer: That must be very useful. Ellroy: Yeah, I live a very, very simple interior life that allows this stuff to build in me...