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How hardboiled detective fiction saved James Ellroy

After his mother’s murder, the teenage Ellroy seemed lost to speed and alcohol – until his discovery of crime writing led to a different addiction

18 March 2023

9:00 AM

18 March 2023

9:00 AM

Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy Steven Powell

Bloomsbury, pp.334, 12.99

Public readings by James Ellroy would tend to begin like this:

Good evening, peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty sniffers, punks and pimps. I’m James Ellroy, demon dog of American literature, the foul owl with the death growl, the white night of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick.

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