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Title: American Tabloid by James Ellroy ISBN: 0-375-72737-X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (108 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Loved it!
Comment: As a reader of primarily non-fiction (history/economics), I am no expert on popular authors. However, after reading American Tabloid, it is clear that James Ellroy is a cut above the bestseller-writing hacks. The story is fascinatingly complex, and focuses on recent history as seen through the eyes of three very different lead fictional characters. Ellroy reminds one of Gore Vidal in his tendency to use fictional characters and their perceptions of what is going on around them to express his own historical interpretations. Since much of his historical interpretations are conjecture involving conspiracies, the novel is the perfect writing medium for Ellroy. He turns actual historical figures into peripheral characters in the lives of the fictional ones. Ellroy's distortions of history are amusing, entertaining, and fairly harmlesss. Readers who were put off by Ellroy's esoteric writing style in previous novels (White Jazz, L.A. Confidential) need not worry. This time around, he is a bit more reader-friendly. Above all, the story is top-notch. This is a rather lengthy book, but you will breeze through it. It is a pleasure to read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Blistering,paranoid and brilliant
Comment: James Ellroy writes "hard boiled" fiction. If you hard boil an egg for about a week,perhaps. Ellroy inhabits a world all his own in crime literature. Having somehow survived a childhood from dantes seventh circle, he grew up to write these angry books where the bad guys are powerful white men{thinking of inherent power structures, he's quite correct}.American tabloid tells the story ,in all its vainglorious insanity, of that sweet time in Americana called "Camelot". This riveting novel actually is a meditation on power, who has it, and what it does. Betrayal{Bay of Pigs, Kennedy blowing off a CIA agent, everybody BUT the Kennedy's racking Marilyn Monoroe, J edgar Hoover, Joe Kennedy, Howard Hughes} all amke appearances leading to Dealy Plaza. s always, Ellroys descriptive powers are unmatched in describing viloence{the Cuban cab front company has some interesting moments}, and no one, no one, comes off as good in this. A profoundly disturbing book, a meditation on power, America, and who really runs things.One of our better writers in any genre has written another would be classic. Very very well done . Highest recommendation.
Rating: 5
Summary: Savage, Dark, Awesome!
Comment: Ellroy's "American Tabloid" takes the Kennedy-Bay of Pigs era and throws it in the shredder, hacking through the Golden Age myths of Camelot and the reader's pre-conceptions about the JFK presidency.
America has never looked so seedy or corrupt. In a work that should be accompanied by a Quentin Tarantino-selected soundtrack, Ellroy spins a tale of duplicity, false alliances, and mutual interest that alternately unites and tears apart the men of the CIA, the FBI, the Mob, the Teamsters, and teven he insane Howard Hughes. The trio of anti-heroes who drive the story forward, Pete Bondurant (hand-cuff snapping hired muscle), Kemper Boyd (Kennedy wannabe from the CIA), and Ward Littel (fallen FBI angel) rub shoulders with the Kennedys, J. Edgar Hoover, and other infamous movers and shakers from the period.
One hopes that Ellroy's exhilirating tale is not historically accurate, but Ellroy weaves enough historical detail that you feel as if "you are there, live!" If even one tenth of Ellroy's tale *is* true, then we are reminded how fragile and savage our American experiment with democracy really is.
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Title: The Cold Six Thousand: A Novel by James Ellroy ISBN: 037572740X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 11 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy ISBN: 0446674362 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.99 |
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Title: The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy ISBN: 0446674370 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: White Jazz : A Novel by JAMES ELLROY ISBN: 0375727361 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 24 April, 2001 |
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Title: My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir by James Ellroy ISBN: 0679762051 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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