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.

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Who moved my cheese ?

Some books can literally change your life, because they change YOU. Or rather, because they change your behaviour in some circumstances. THIS BOOK is one of THIS KIND.

Who moved my cheese ? is about change. Every kind of change : in your professional, family life or in your relationship with your soulmate.

Who moved my cheese ? is the simplest story ever. It tells the tales of four tiny characters and a cheese. Two of the protagonists are mice : Sniff and Scurry. And the other two are Haw and Hem, the little people . They all lived in a Maze and they ate cheese they found in Cheese Station C somewhere in this Maze.

However, one day, the cheese is vanished in thin air. Somebody has moved the cheese.

The mice adapted rapidly. They put on their shoes and searched immediately for new cheese. The little people, with their more complex brains, overanalyzed things, regretted the good old days… and wasted a lot of time searching for the old cheese.

Which character are you ? Are you one of the mice, who changed their minds immediately in order to adapt to the new situation ? Or the one from the little people who lost their time thinking the wrong way ?

The story is so simple, so full of enlightenment, and the characters are so typified that you can easily project and identify yourself with characters and situations.

You can use this tiny book for your own advantageous, but it can also be used as a base of support for a training course, or a campaign for change in your organization, or the basic story of a training course, or as a method of starting point for a discussion for individual coaching.

Who moved my cheese is a must. It is the prove that wisdom often takes very simple ways. It is simply a modern parable about change.

Who moved my cheese ? An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life, Dr Spencer Johnson, Foreword by Kenneth Blanchard, PHD, Vermillion, Randomhouse, 95 p.