ELLROY IS A UNIQUE VOICE IN AMERICAN FICTION' - JONATHAN KELLERMAN. On 21 June 1958, Geneva Hilliker Ellroy left her home in California. She was found strangled the next day. Her 10 year-old son James had been with her estranged husband all weekend and was informed of her death on his return. Her murderer was never found, but her death had an enduring legacy on her son - he spent his teen and early adult years as a wino, petty burglar and derelict. Only later, through his obsession with crime fiction, triggered by his mother's murder, did Ellroy begin to delve into his past. Shortly after the publication of his ground-breaking novel WHITE JAZZ, he determined to return to Los Angeles and with the help of veteran detective Bill Stoner, attempt to solve the 38-year-old killing. The result is one of the few classics of crime non-fiction and autobiography to appear in the last few decades; a hypnotic trip to America's underbelly and one man's tortured soul.
My Dark Places is an interesting combination between investigative journalism/true crime and memoir of James Ellroy and his struggle to find answers to the unsolved murder of his mother, Geneva. She did when he was 10 years old and started his love affair with the Black Dahlia case and all things crime related (especially books; beginning with the Hardy boys and moving onto the hard-boiled greats). Needless to say the death of his mother was particularly hard on him and caused a very self destructive lifestyle. My Dark Places doesn’t hold anything back, even things most people wouldn’t admit to; James Ellroy reveals all of his dark past, including drug abuse, racism and his inappropriate feelings towards his dead mother. I think this is the first true crime book I’ve read and now I’ve got a taste for it. I would love to read a good Black Dahlia true crime novel, so I can better understand the case. I recommend this book to James Ellroy, True Crime and Autobiography fans alike it was a very interesting read.
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23 May, 2011:
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