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RARA-AVIS: My evening with Ellroy - a report 

For what it's worth, I thought I'd report on the appearance and reading 
last night by James Ellroy at the College of William and Mary.  I would 
encourage all to see him, if possible, if he comes to an area near you.  
He said that his book tour is over for now and he is on his way to 
France.  Don't know if that's for vacation or a European tour.  As was 
mentioned by someone else, he will be on "Sunday Morning" this coming 
week.

The most striking thing about him to me is that he speaks the way he 
writes.  He uses large vocal gestures and inflections for emphasis and 
sprinkles profanity as a "natural" punctuation to his language.  I'm 
assuming that this is his normal style and not some public performance, 
though afterwards at a reception he asked eveyone how they enjoyed "the 
show."  He also referred to anyone who might be close to his own age (48) 
as "Daddy-O."  (I have to admit that's a real kick to be called that by 
Ellroy.  Kind of like having Sinatra refer to you as "punk.")  
Physically, he is quite tall and lanky and walks with a sloping, jerky 
shoulders style that is distinctive.

I asked him afterwards to describe his writing style and he said, as I 
suspected, that he talks to himself as he writes to get the cadences 
correct.  He said that he likes to do these readings for the same reason. 
 Interestingly, he write his manuscripts not only by hand, but in block 
capitals.  (There was a local psychiatrist at the reading who is also a 
mystery buff and I was dying to ask him about his view of all this, but I 
didn't!)

I also asked him how he viewed other "hardboiled" writers and he said 
that he rapidly grew beyond liking Chandler and thought much more highly 
of Hammett and Cain, which was no great surprise.  Interestingly, he said 
he hates authors that some assume he must like:  Hunter S. Thompson and 
William Burroughs, for example, who he dismissed as "drug addicts and 
wife murderers"

The best question from the largely college-age audience was "How do you 
see yourself dying," to which he replied, "At a very old age and in my 
own bed."  I regretted later that I did not ask him the question posed on 
the list about going soft now that he has written the story of his own 
mother's death.  He did say, not surprisingly, that the touchstone for 
his writing is the whole history of L.A. crime.  (He's sure O.J. did it, 
by the way.)  He said that following his mother's death he started 
reading nothing but crime stories, beginning with children's crime 
novels.  Interestingly, as a very young child (his out-of-work father 
used to pass the time reading on the couch and taught the young Ellroy to 
read at the age of 3) he avoided stories in which animals are hurt and 
his father used to have to review all the books his youngster wrote to 
ensure they didn't contain that subject.

He was asked about why his books haven't been made into movies and he 
said that "Blood on the Moon" was made into a horrible on called "Cop" 
with James Woods and Lesley Ann Warren.  (He described Woods as being 
among the most ineffective of actors.)  He did reveal, however, that 
"L.A. Confidential," the third of his so-called L.A. Quartet, will be 
coming out in May or October.  I wished I'd written down all the details, 
but among those involved in the production are Danny DeVito as the gossip 
collumnist, James Cromwell (the farmer in "Babe") as Dallas Smith and a 
rather "long in the tooth" (according to Ellroy) Kim Bassinger as the 
female lead.  It's directed by Curtis Hanson who did "The Hand that Rocks 
the Cradle" and "The River Wild."  Ellroy's seen about 20 minutes of it, 
he says, and believes it will be very good.

I should also mention that speaking before Ellroy was an equally 
fascinating Robert Pollito, author of the Edgar and National Book Critics 
Circle awards winning "Savage Art," a biography of Jim Thompson.  He read 
a section about Thompson's relationship with his father which was a nice 
counterpoint to Ellroy's piece about his mother's death.  Pollito, who is 
also a poet, said that he feels Thompson's place in American culture is 
more as a catalyst than anything else.  Talking with him afterwards we 
agreed that his influence infused the creative atmosphere that makes 
possible works by filmakers like the Coen brothers and Tarrantino.

Didn't mean to be so long-winded, but I thought some of this would be of 
interest to list members.

Regards,

Patrick

++ Patrick Golden ++ Program Services Manager ++ pgolden@leo.vsla.edu 
++ Williamsburg Regional Library ++ Virginia ++ http://www.wrl.org

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