Every single book is by James Ellroy.Įllroy is a hulking presence. Two massive dark mahogany bookshelves frame the entrance to his living room. There are posters for the movie adaptations of L.A. When he rented an apartment in Carroll Gardens last winter, the message was: “This is Ellroy’s swinging Brooklyn pad.”) His apartment could double as a film-noir set: dark red walls, heavy shades, dim yellow lights, plush leather furniture. (“You’ve reached Ellroy’s pad,” he says on his answering machine, in the groovy voice of a late-night-radio DJ. The interview was conducted over the course of a week last spring at his Los Angeles apartment, in a thirties art-deco building where Mae West and Ava Gardner once lived. These days he favors ivy caps and Hawaiian shirts. This portrait, as it turns out, is entirely accurate-except for the attire. Reading James Ellroy’s novels, it’s tempting to imagine the sixty-one-year-old author as a hyperactive, shotgun-toting, trash-talking connoisseur of crime, women, and American history, the kind of guy who pals around with homicide detectives and wears fedoras and bespoke suits. Interviewed by Nathaniel Rich Issue 190, Fall 2009
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