Showing results for "James Ellroy" in Biographies & Memoirs

From the Demon Dog of American literature comes James Ellroy’s Hollywood Death Trip. Dig into a quintet of highly stylized true crime that delves into some of the most notorious, unsolved, midcentury-Hollywood murders. Ellroy’s wicked baritone draws listeners into a series of hellacious crimes; beginning with the heartbreaking and gruesome murder of his own mother. Next, it’s the Karen Kupcinet Killing - her body, found strangled just days after JFK’s assassination. Beautiful Stephanie Gorman, a debutante killed by a stranger, made Los Angeles lock its doors at night. The series concludes with the salacious snuff of actor Sal Mineo, whose death is a fitting epigraph for a series set in “Hollyweird”.

This is the story of James Ellroy, one of the most provocative and singular figures in American literature. The so-called “Demon Dog of Crime Fiction,” Ellroy enjoys a celebrity status and notoriety that few authors can match. However, traumas from the past have shadowed his literary success. Informed by interviews with friends, family, peers, and literary and Hollywood collaborators, as well as extensive conversations with Ellroy himself, Love Me Fierce in Danger pulls back the curtain on an enigmatic figure who has courted acclaim and controversy with equal zealotry.

Crime writer James Ellroy and poet Maxine Kumin on this edition of Fresh Air. Ellroy sets his novels in 1950's L.A., where he grew up. His series of novels, L.A. Quartet was a best seller. His latest novel is called Hollywood Nocturnes. When he was ten, his mother was murdered near their L.A. home. He wrote an article about returning to L.A. to go through the police files on his mother in Gentleman's Quarterly.