Ellroy´s Dark Places

Out of the many books James Ellroy has written during the years, this particular book no doubt has the most personal touch. For the first time in his life, Ellroy accepts the fact that his obsession for the Black Dahlia is actually derived from an inner obsession… for his mother!

Ellroy’s mother had been murdered on the 6/22/1958. Her body was discovered at King’s Row and Tyler Avenue, El Monte.

My Dark Places is all about this murder…and the personal enquiry Ellroy undertakes 36 years later.

As a whole, this is a complex book - not in the sense that it is difficult to read and grasp, but its structure is very multiple. It opens like an impersonal report book; like the ones policemen write after a scene of a crime. In this book, Ellroy talks about him as a third person in which he is the child; the victim’s son.

The second chapter is more personally written. It is the memoirs of the young Ellroy living with his father, and later having to live alone, being a heavy drunker, a junkie and a thief.

Ellroy associated himself with Bill Stoner; a retired police from LAPD, to re-open his mother’s unsolved case. Together they read thousand of reports pages, interview innumerable witnesses or witnesses’ ascendants. They publish articles and give advice to film makers and television authors to relay a message to audiences and get an echo of the truth.

The next chapter is probably the most touching part of all. It is about his mother. Was Jean (Geneva) Ellroy a heavy drunker and a man chaser, or simply a woman searching for some peace of mind by moving into El Monte after several years residing in Hollywood? Who were the swarthy man and the blonde woman that accompanied her during her last night?

Was the murderer a serial killer or simply an occasional criminal; murdering a woman who refused a sexual intercourse?

The inimitable Ellroy’s style is sharper than ever and his personal revelations are written as blankly and coldly as the police reports, more touchy and disturbing than any crime novel ever written. This book is a total scream - a scream of love and unreachable despair.

Marco and Suzi.