Destination Morgue

Zusatztext “Ellroy rips into American culture like a chainsaw in an abattoir.” —Time “One of the great American writers of our time.” — Los Angeles Times “Nobody in this generation matches the breadth and depth of James Ellroy’s way with noir.” — Detroit News “Ellroy is either our greatest obsessive writer or our most obsessive great writer. Either way! he is turning the crime novel’s mean streets into superhighways.” —Financial Times Informationen zum Autor James Ellroy Klappentext Dig. The Demon Dog gets down with a new book of scenes from America's capital of kink: Los Angeles. Fourteen pieces, some fiction, some nonfiction, all true enough to be admissible as state's evidence, and half of it in print for the first time. And every one of them bearing the James Ellroy brand of mayhem, machismo, and hollow-nose prose. Here are Mexican featherweights and unsolved-murder vics, crooked cops and a very clean D.A. Here is a profile of Hollywood's latest celebrity perp-walker, Robert Blake, and three new novellas featuring a demented detective with an obsession with a Hollywood actress. And, oh yes, just maybe the last appearance of Hush-Hush sleaze-monger Danny Getchell. Here's Ellroy himself, shining a 500-watt Mag light into all the dark places of his life and imagination. Destination: Morgue! puts the reader's attention in a hammerlock and refuses to let go. Leseprobe Chapter 1 Balls to the Wall Boxing is: Blood sport declawed and reregulated. Cockfights for aesthetes and wimps. Boxing is microcosm. Boxing baits pundits. Boxing rips writers and rags them to riff. Boxing taps testosterone. Boxing bangs to the balls. Boxing mauls and makes you mine meaning. Mexican boxing is: Boxing distilled. Boxing stoicized. Boxing hyperbolized. Mexican boxing is machismo magnified. Mexican boxing is bristling bravado. Mexican boxing means you die for love and live to impress and subjugate your buddies. Vegas boxing is: Lowlife pomp. Westminster West. Best-of-weight class as best-of-breed. Vegas boxing is Rome revived. Gladiators divert high rollers. Imperial goons exploit muscled maxi-men and mainline their money. I got the word: Erik Morales meets Marco Antonio Barrera. Junior featherweights. Title tiff. Vegas. I had to go. I love boxing. We go back. My folks divorced in '55. My dad got me weekends. We holed up. We watched the fights. We had a bubble-screen TV. We snarfed Cheez Whiz. My dad rooted on race and "heart." He liked white fighters best. He liked Mexicans next. He liked Negroes last. Heart eclipsed race. Heart mitigated race. Heart gave Mexicans White Man status. "Mexican" meant all Latins. Mexican meant some Italians. Mexican meant the Cuban Negro Kid Gavilan. My dad fucked up race and geography. He was a Wasp. He hit L.A. and learned Spanish. He dug inclusiveness. He knew the White Man ruled. He knew the Brown Man craved in. He wanted him in. If he kicked ass to his specifications. Race. Heart. My early education. I lived in L.A. I watched TV fights. I watched fights live. The Olympic. The Hollywood Legion Stadium. Smoke. Ceiling lights. Beer and crushed peanuts. My dad took me. We sat with Mexicans. We watched Mexicans kick triracial ass. My dad went chameleon. My dad gestured wild. My dad Mexicanized. He talked to Mexican men. He slapped their backs. He translated for me. Male-speak. My early education. Headhunter. Go to the body. Cut off the ring. Pendejo. Cojones. Maricon. My dad divided Mexicans. Illegal immigrants were "wet-backs." Wetbacks had heart. They swam the Rio Grande. They sought trabajo . They scuffled. They worked hard. They craved White Man status. Hoodlums were Pachucos. Pachucos lacked hea...

Product details

• Authors: James Ellroy
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 28.09.2004
• EAN: 9781400032877
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-3287-7
• No. of pages: 400
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 205 mm x 20 mm
• Series: A Vintage Original; A Vintage Original
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense