White Jazz: A Novel (original 1992; edition 2001)

I'd be tough to call the seedy, lurid dime novels that probably influenced James Ellroy great literature, and, honestly, I think I'd also be pretty tough to call the stuff he produces great literature, too, though some people have certainly tried. As with most Ellroy books, everything's a bit too intense to be taken altogether seriously, which gives this stuff a sort of cartoonish feel. In Ellroy's literary universe, evil characters are unimaginably twisted rather than merely venal, rogue cops are one-man crime waves with police badges rather than guys in blue who overstep the law, and hot dames are all-out sexpots rather than just pretty women. This stuff is evolved trash, but, to Ellroy's credit, it can also be really fun evolved trash.

Actually, Ellroy gets a bit of credit for keeping keeping things relatively simple in "White Jazz" and for tamping down some of his more extreme noirish tendencies. The police side of thing is more-or-less limited to the misadventures of a single detective, and the plot's relative economy makes the plot a bit more believable -- not to mention easier to follow -- than most of the other novels that make up the author's "L.A. Quartet." His prose's more reined-in, too, and you can see him developing a sparer, more staccato narrative voice that makes his writing in "The Black Dahlia" seem positively florid. Even so, this doesn't mean that you can't call "White Jazz" minimalist in any sense of the word: the book's too long, and readers who refuse to suspend their disbelief are unlikely to finish it. Still, Ellroy's talent for establishing historical setting -- and for writing snappy, cheerfully profane period dialogue -- is sharp as ever; I suspect he'd be a pretty good historian, or at least a good historical novelist, if he ever wanted to give his neo-noir gig a rest. Anyway, after three or four Ellroy novels, I think I'm ready to take a break from him. It's back to the "literary fiction" section for me. I can always re-watch "The Big Sleep" if I feel the need for a dose of seedy, dangerous mid-century L.A. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It was complex and convoluted following the tale of Dave Klein, a lieutenant in the LAPD Ad Vice unit. Klein has a lot of secrets buried in his past including some unsavory connections to the criminal underworld. He gets called to a burglary at the house of a family of known criminals and believes there is more to the bizarre, violent crime than meets the eye.

This book brings back the L.A. Confidential characters of Edmund Exley and Dudley Smith as well as some minor characters - Howard Hughes, Mickey Cohen, Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle. The thing I found most interesting about this book is that all of the characters are corrupted and crooked. There are no heroes and everyone is working an angle. In this gray and gritty landscape where no one is who they seem, I still found myself hoping for a somewhat happy ending for Klein. I felt for him and even rooted for him at certain points.

Much has been made of Ellroy's staccato style of writing style. It is very terse and occasionally challenging to follow. But I found Ellroy to be a gifted writer and I think this was an amazing book. ( )

I hated this book, and it was a real struggle to get through on many levels, including an annoying prose style, density of prose, crazy meandering plot, and a surfeit of characters. And none of these are even the book's greatest flaw. However, there is enough of a compelling sense of style, history, place and momentum that I thought the book balanced out to a 3 rather than a zero.

It's not that I don't like midcentury American crime, even if it has to be set in ignoble LA. I don't particularly care for all the layers of police procedure, but even that can easily be overlooked. BUT I cannot forgive an author making me wade through 350 pages and never presenting any evidence of humanity on the part of his hero.

In this case, every single character is beyond redemption. The world would be a better place if they were all dead. There is no humanity at all, and every time you think you see a glimpse, events serve to stomp it out with a vengeance. Two buddies, JC and Herrick, come to LA to make their fortunes? Have them screw each other's wives! Give a weak man a chance to protect his sister? Turn it into an incestuos peep show! Displaced refugees? Show only their ugly underbelly! A love story amid the ruin? Make it completely unmotivated and unlikely, so as to render it meaningless. And finally: give Dave Klein a chance to confess and reptent, and spend the last lines of the book reminding us he's only concerned about squaring up with the world, not God or his own sense of morality.

The best thing I can guess about Ellroy, who I have not read before, is that it does not appear that he hates women as much as he does everyone else. They alone escape - numb and stupid, but innocent.

Endless, horrible, over-the-top, disgustingly enthusiastic racism: considering he wrote this book in '01, Ellroy is either a genius at insisting on accuracy, or he just enjoys it all a little too much. It reads like the latter. And please don't say "he busts on everyone - blacks, jews, etc." as though it were an excuse.

The tight, staccato prose *might* be palatable for a short story. Of under five thousand words. At such length, it's giving me a headache even thinking about it.

People say JE has written better books. Not sure I'll be up for finding out myself for a while. ( )