Jim Beaver wrote:
> > Anyone on the list read THE TICKET OUT by Helen
Knode, aka Mrs. Ellroy?
I
> > thought it was terrific, a great L.A. crime
story set against the
backdrop
> > of the movie business. She shares a number of
her husband's obsessions.
>
> All I know of Ms. Knode is that she was once theatre
critic for the L.A.
> Weekly, and that she once showed up to review a play
of mine. The play
was
> part of a special program and as such, the
performance she reviewed began
at
> 6 p.m. I was standing near the boxoffice when she
arrived to pick up her
> complimentary ticket. She said to the boxoffice
attendant, "Who's the
moron
> who decided six o'clock was a good time to start a
play? This had better
be
> damned good." She then used her review to trash the
performance time and
to
> condemn the play because a character in it had the
temerity, in passing,
to
> suggest that Thomas Jefferson was something greater
than the "slaveholding
> racist" Ms. Knode believed him to be. It didn't keep
the play from
winning
> several awards, but it will probably keep me from
buying Ms. Knode's book.
> Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Nice to see that they're a matched pair with regard to their
relative levels of inate charm, Jim. A friend of mine here in
Seattle used to work for the University Bookstore, and helped
schedule readings by authors as they came through town.
University Bookstore is a pretty big venue and can mean a lot
of exposure for authors when they give a reading there. As
such, it's an unwritten rule there that if an author is nice
to the staff, or even just basically polite, that author will
get a plug from the staff when they're making suggestions to
customers, whether the staff member has read the work of the
author in question or not.
Ellroy came through town a few years back, gave a reading,
and was on no one's suggested reading list afterward. The
words "primadonna," and
"posturing jerk" were on all of the staff's lips though. I
went to the reading in question, too, and I have to tell you,
I've never seen him interviewed before or since (read a
couple though), and on the day I saw him
(and perhaps he was having an off day), he demonstrated all
of the warmth of a deep freeze and all the charm of a gila
monster.
It's coincidental in my case that at the time I was beginning
to sour on his books as they began to get more overblown,
more sensational, less gritty, more focused on muck and mire
and less focused on delivering a good narrative with
well-developed characters. Don't get me wrong, many people
like Ellroy's work. As has been discussed ad inifintum on
this list, I'm just not one of them.
Your Mileage May Vary-
Brian Thornton
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 16 Oct 2004 EDT