Books Read: The Big Nowhere
Apr. 27th, 2003 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aThis afternoon I finished reading The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy. This is the second book in Ellroy's "LA Quartet", all of which are crime noir/police procedural novels set in Los Angeles and Hollywood during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The most well-known of the four is the third, LA Confidential, because of the superb movie by the same name.
After seeing LA Confidential a couple of years ago, I immediately started in on the LA Quartet with the first book, The Black Dahlia. I personally found that first book grotesque and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. On the other hand, I read it while abed with the worst flue I've had in years and so perhaps it was just a case of bad associations ... but in any case as a result The Big Nowhere and LA Confidential have set sadly on my to-be-read shelf for years.
And with that said: I liked The Big Nowhere quite a bit. It has a complex storyline, interweaving the stories of three different characters. The mysteries are complex too, with half-a-dozen or a dozen important characters moving in and out of the story's central serial killings--but Ellroy does an excellent job of helping you keep track. The story is surprising and shocking, sad and still hopeful. The characters are all extremely well drawn, especially the three main characters who are each uniquely human.
Best of all, perhaps, is the solid feeling of being in LA in 1950. Ellroy paints the locale in brilliant technicolor, from the wars between the LAPD and the sheriff's office, to the strikingly similar problems between two local mob leaders. The Red Scare and the fall of HUAC are all at the heart of the story. And there's Jazz too--lots of Jazz. It's all noir at its absolute best and a fun read too.
I'm not quite ready to dive into LA Confidential yet, because TBN was a very challenging read, but I doubt it'll be two more years before I get back to it.
After seeing LA Confidential a couple of years ago, I immediately started in on the LA Quartet with the first book, The Black Dahlia. I personally found that first book grotesque and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. On the other hand, I read it while abed with the worst flue I've had in years and so perhaps it was just a case of bad associations ... but in any case as a result The Big Nowhere and LA Confidential have set sadly on my to-be-read shelf for years.
And with that said: I liked The Big Nowhere quite a bit. It has a complex storyline, interweaving the stories of three different characters. The mysteries are complex too, with half-a-dozen or a dozen important characters moving in and out of the story's central serial killings--but Ellroy does an excellent job of helping you keep track. The story is surprising and shocking, sad and still hopeful. The characters are all extremely well drawn, especially the three main characters who are each uniquely human.
Best of all, perhaps, is the solid feeling of being in LA in 1950. Ellroy paints the locale in brilliant technicolor, from the wars between the LAPD and the sheriff's office, to the strikingly similar problems between two local mob leaders. The Red Scare and the fall of HUAC are all at the heart of the story. And there's Jazz too--lots of Jazz. It's all noir at its absolute best and a fun read too.
I'm not quite ready to dive into LA Confidential yet, because TBN was a very challenging read, but I doubt it'll be two more years before I get back to it.
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Date: 2003-04-28 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-29 03:48 pm (UTC)My understanding is that Ellroy's staccato style of writing didn't really develop until his fourth LA book. If you like noir/detective, you might appreciate "The Big Nowhere" (and "LA Confidential") even if you can't get into his later books.
Re:
Date: 2003-04-30 02:17 pm (UTC)