Ellroy off the Record

Published: Tuesday, March 2, 1999

Tuesday, March 2, 1999

Noted author of 'L.A. Confidential' to make his appearance at UCLA,

promoting his latest works

By Lonnie Harris

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

James Ellroy coming to speak at UCLA seems like a natural fit. After the success of the film version of his novel, "L.A. Confidential," the crime novelist has the distinction of being immediately recognizable as an authority on L.A. history and culture. Ellroy, who will speak on campus at an event sponsored by the English department this Wednesday, moves away from the L.A. setting with his new books - "Crime Wave" and the autobiographical "My Dark Places."

"I haven't lived in L.A. for several years," Ellroy says. "After my Los Angeles Quartet of books ("Black Dahlia," "L.A. Confidential," "Big Nowhere" and "White Jazz"), I figured I'd done everything I could do with Los Angeles history. Now I've moved on to American history."

American crime history from 1958 to 1963 formed the basis for Ellroy's "American Tabloid," while the next several years are covered in "Crime Wave." Ellroy is calling his new series of novels the underworld USA trilogy.

"I became fascinated with crime after my mother was murdered in 1958," Ellroy says. "I love brooding on crime. I love thinking about American history and L.A. history."

The subject of Ellroy's talk for the English department, however, will be anything but a stuffy lecture on Los Angeles history. Though the author has been involved in several dry historical projects dealing with the city (including a CD-ROM about crime in Los Angeles soon to be released by the UCLA Film and Television Archive), his personality is upbeat and outrageous. This rather silly sensibility is generally on display during Ellroy's television appearances, especially on his recent trip to "Late Night With Conan O'Brien."

"I try to meet the expectations of the audience," Ellroy says. "Conan's audience isn't the most intelligent out there, so I try to be funny and play to them."

When asked about his attitude toward his presentation to prospective young writers at UCLA, Ellroy conceded that his primary aim was financial.

"I'm on a book tour right now, so I'm trying to sell books," Ellroy admits. "I'll talk about the books, do a little schtick, you know. Hopefully, students and faculty will want to read what I've written."

Perhaps the most famous of everything Ellroy has ever written would be his best-seller "L.A. Confidential." "Confidential" was the source material for Curtis Hanson's award-winning 1997 film of the same name. The saga of two generations of L.A. cops used classic Ellroy narrative to reveal a labrynthine plot inhabited by shadowy and mysterious characters.

The books he has written most recently are two of the more interesting (and personal) books thus far in his career. "My Dark Places," a memoir focusing on his mother's death and its effect on his development, touches some places his novels have never really been before.

"It's not as if the specific obsession with my mother's murder has dogged me, plagued me or cursed me," Ellroy told Worldguide Interviews in 1997. "It mutated into other forms very early on, chiefly a fascination with crime, crime fiction, psychosexual behavior, kids' crime books, adult crime books, the whole criminal universe."

As for "Crime Wave," it picks up where "American Tabloid" left off, covering crime from 1963 to 1968, or, as Ellroy summarizes it, "the most horrible things that happened for those five years."

Though Ellroy obviously does a great deal of research on the eras he writes about, he admits fully to making up the characters and specific events.

"I don't know any criminals," Ellroy told an interviewer in 1997. "I make this stuff up. I am conservative in temperament and solidly on the side of authority. I don't know any criminals."

SPEAKER: Ellroy will present a free lecture in 2160E Dickson on Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Books will be available for purchase at the event.Photos courtesy of Knopf

"American Tabloid" chronicles major events in the history of crime from 1958 to 1963.

James Ellroy comes to UCLA to promote his latest novels and will speak at Dickson Hall Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Comments, feedback, problems?