His boy Ellroy

[Diana York Blaine]

David--thanks for the rundown on Ellroy's fiction. (or is that low-down?)
I've never read any of it and am wondering if you have read the
non-fiction _My Dark Places_ that I was referring to.  He is "finally"
writing about what's always been there but hidden, his own mother's murder
(and his sexual desire for her). It didn't strike me at all as god-awful
purple prose like those excerpts you offered us from the fiction. Maybe
he doesn't need to use language as a distancing mechanism so much here?
Also the El Monte stuff is certainly apt--one of my seedy stomping grounds
as a j.d.--but again, he actually went back there to investigate her
murder, so maybe this provides an authenticity the other work lacks.  Any
thoughts? -Diana