I had the opposite reaction to American Tabloid. It led me to
swear off Ellroy, of whom I had once been a huge fan, turning
all of my friends on to him. In my mind Ellroy's writing
became schtick in this book, a caricature of his style. And
that caricature led me to believe for the first time that
Ellroy sets his books in the past so he can have an excuse
for spouting racist, misogynist and homophobic speech and
say
"it's not me, it was the times"; for the first time, I felt
it was him, as he spread the views too uniformly among
characters, with little to no variation of viewpoint.
Also, I was far, far more satisfied with DeLillo's Libra, as
far as historicl novels about the Kennedy assassination
go.
Mark
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