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Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales (2003)

door James Ellroy

Andere auteurs: Zie de sectie andere auteurs.

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James Ellroy is acknowledged as one of America's greatest living writers. As well as his critically acclaimed novels, he is a regular contributor to GQ magazine in the States. This collection will contain sixteen of these pieces, both autobiographical and crime reportage as well as a Novella- Hollywood Fuck Pad.… (meer)
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Ok, I'm really sick of writing reviews. There was a time when I corresponded w/ about 1,400 people & I kept track of it all w/ a record-keeping system that became so laboriously bureaucratic that I got sick of it & lost touch w/ almost everyone. Now the same thing's happening w/ bks. Almost everytime I read one I start to have such detailed responses to them that it's becoming a ridiculous chore to try to write a review. It's taking the fun out of reading. SO, keep that in mind as I try to write THIS review.

Ellroy: At 1st I was very impressed by him. The writing had style, there was a brutal realism. Then I started realizing how tediously obsessed he is w/ writing about women being tortured & killed. But, still, it's engrossing stuff in a classic pulp crime fiction way - & it ups the ante for such stuff way beyond what the writers of the 30s thru the 50s cd've ever gotten away w/. & I liked his JFK era trilogy alot as 'conspiracy theory' stuff. AND I was interested in his personal history. SO, I keep coming back.

This is a collection of short nonfiction & crime fiction - much of wch has been previously published in GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly). Am I a GQ kindof a guy? Hardly. So that shd be a warning. In "Where I Get My Weird Shit" he reminisces about his yrs at a predominantly Jewish High School:

"[..] I wanted to promote myself as strictly unique and attract commensurate notice. I was a rebel with self-aggrandizement as cause.

"I pondered the dilemma. I hit on a solution. I joined the American Nazi Party. I debuted my führer act in the West L.A. shtetl.

"It backfired - and worked.

It got me some attention. It got me recognized as a buffoon. I did not subvert the status quo at Fairfax High School. I did not derail the Jewish hegemony. I passed out hate tracts and "Boat Tickets to Africa." I anointed myself as the seed bearer of a new master race. I announced my intent to establish a Fourth Reich in Kosher Kanyon. I defamed jigaboos and dug the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I ragged Martin Luther Coon and hawked copies of "The Nigger's 23rd Psalm." I got sneered at, I got laughed at, I got pushed, I got shoved. I developed a sense of politics as vaudeville and got my ass kicked a few times. I learned how to spin narrative and elicit response. I knew that I didn't hate Negroes or Jews - as long as they comprised a rapt audience. [..]"

Earlier in the same article he writes about liking Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer character & states that he became "a childhood Red basher". He hoarded scandal rags & skin mags. WELL, that explains alot. I've read Spillane's "One Lonely Night". It was one of the worst bks I've ever read. In the 1951 Signet paperback edition I have there's a cover picture of a naked white girl hanging from ropes attached to the ceiling & tied to her wrists. In Spillane's purely propagandistic world, it's the dirty commies who're doing this to her. Somehow, I think it wasn't really a common thing for communists in the US to hang naked women from ceilings as a part of their political activities. Of course, what the fuck did Spillane care? Anti-commie drek SOLD in the 50s & as far as I can tell not only was Spillane a pretty shitty writer he had no political scruples whatsoever.

Ellroy seems to take Spillane to a new 'level'. In "Jungletown Jihad" I assume this 'level' is parody. the section entitled "Homeland Security" begins w/ the purple prose of: "It justified jerry-rigged justice. It mandated mucho mayhem. It took us to torture techniques." As the torturing Vietnam vet cop sends electric charges to the testicles of the person being tortured, the victim screams out slogans like: "Viva PLF! Viva gay marriage! Viva Robert Mapplethorpe and freedom of expression! Viva National Public TV!" Parody or not, this bk came out in 2004 & it has its protagonists torturing an Arab sympathizer terrorist - a 'leftist'. WELL, the character's ridiculous - but as w/ the writings of Spillane in the McCarthy era, I suspect that Ellroy's cops torturing this guy cd've made his readership ACCEPT that the US's torture is acceptable & even FUNNY. NOT.

Later, in Ellroy's other autobiographical story, "My Life as a Creep", Ellroy concludes his story w/:

"I attribute my survival to the seldom-sought presence of Almighty God. Skeptics and inclusionists might scoff at this. They can kiss my fucking ass."

Oh well, I don't "scoff" at this, I downright reject it - & I have no intention of ever kissing Ellroy's ass. The point of all this is that Ellroy really hasn't changed that much from when he was a kid. His stories are a newish variation on the hateful sensationalism he grew up on. The purple prose that started out as the style of his character Danny Getchell, the "Hush-Hush" sleaze-monger, has more of a presence here than usual. His recurring cop protagonist, Detective Jenson, is constantly using racist slang like "coon" but never uses racist slang that I know LA cops of his era used: "cans". A friend of mine's brother was an LA cop & he wd say: "I'm going out to shoot some Cans - AfriCans, MexiCans." Nyuk nyuk, right? Ellroy's continual use of this slang both serves as realism AND as sensationalism. Wch dominates?

The nonfiction covers prominent politicized criminal cases: Gary Graham aka Shaka Sankofa. On p 86 there's a foto of him in "2002". The article ends saying that Graham was executed in "2000". Wch is it? According to WikiPedia:

"Shaka Sankofa (born Gary Lee Graham) (September 5, 1963 – June 22, 2000) was a Texas death-row inmate who was sentenced to death at the age of 18 for the murder of fifty-three year-old husband and father Bobby Grant Lambert in Houston, Texas on May 13, 1981. Despite his claims of innocence, he was executed by lethal injection at 8:49 pm on Thursday, June 22, 2000 in Huntsville, Texas, aged 36."

Ok, no biggie, there's a date error in the picture's caption. Shortly before Sankofa's execution, he was a bit of a cause célebre. Presumably Ellroy's article was written for GQ b/c of this. It ends w/ "Gary Graham might die this year. This piece is my petition to spare his wretched life." Graham was hardly an 'innocent' man in general but, as Ellroy points out, "The County has a one-witness case." He follows this w/ a quote from the bible: "[..] a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness." SO, I think Ellroy tries to be thorough & fair. He didn't like Graham but he thought there was too much room for doubt regarding the murder that he was executed for.

By the by, according to an online source referencing a 1993 African film, "Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."" If I understand correctly, Gary Graham renamed himself to identify as an African warrior attempting to reclaim his past so that he cd move forward into a better future.

On the other hand, Ellroy HATES former SLA supporter/member Sara Jane Olson aka Kathleen Soliah. As he writes regarding the SLA: "They're loony left-wing losers." Conspiracy theorist Mae Brussell thought they were a CIA creation. I always found Brussell to be very well-informed - judging from the little I know of her. I diagree w/ both of them. I think Ellroy's roots in Mickey Spillane are showing.

In the end, I'll keep reading Ellroy - so he's succeeded w/ his high school purpose of learning "how to spin narrative and elicit response". But, ultimately, he's kindof a bore in contrast to the subtle psychology of fellow crime fiction writer Patricia Highsmith, eg. He's not as much of an asshole as Spillane but his subtexts are still seething w/ hate & stupidity. & I reckon readers of GQ are his most enthusiastic fan-base - wch doesn't say much for intelligence. ( )
  tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
I'm actually a James Ellroy fan; I read and appreciated his Underworld USA trilogy. This book is a collection of non-fiction that mostly was published in GQ, and three stories featuring LA cop, "Rhino" Rick Jensen. Another story brings back one of L.A. Confidential's most memorable characters. Danny Getchell, the editor of the Hollywood gossip magazine, Hush Hush.
Never-the-less, I had a hard time with this collection. The non-fiction half recounts Ellroy's troubled teens and twenties ad nauseum. The best pieces detail unsolved Los Angeles murder cases, but even then Ellroy can't help inject himself and his history into the telling. These pieces certainly benefited by originally being published separately from one another.
Given this shaky start to the collection, I was really looking forward to the fiction. Again I was disappointed. These stories are so full of language that denigrates just about everyone but straight white men that it removes you from the plot. In fact, it makes you aware of just how outlandish the plots of these stories actually are. Ellroy is trying to capture how LA cops talked in the 1980s, but it comes off as elevating these guys instead of bringing their methods and group think to light. In addition, these stories are written in the highly alliterative, staccato sentences of The Cold Six Thousand, which, for me, was the hardest book to take in the Underworld USA trilogy.
Granted, these stories were published in 2004, long before the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements made of us aware of the hurt the language we use can cause. It will be interesting to see how Ellroy writes now, especially since he has a new novel about LA cops, Hollywood and the gossip mags. ( )
  RobertOK | Dec 3, 2021 |
Destination: Morgue! collects a bunch of non-fiction pieces Ellroy wrote over the past decade (mostly for GQ) and several novellas that were never published. I was apprehensive going in, since I know this has a reputation as being one of the worst Ellroy books out there. For the first half, I didn't believe that at all — the bulk of the essays were quite compelling. Ellroy lets his obsessions guide his writing, and he's had a crazy life.

But while he manages to jam elements from his essays into the novellas in the second half, that doesn't really make them good. In fact, it's Ellroy at his absolute worse - non-stop alliteration, and the sex-violence nexus (as he puts it) cranked to the max. I realize there's a meta element here, which sounds good on paper, but it's just obnoxious. Having read other Ellroy story collections, I really think he needs space to really stretch and let his stories sprawl. Books in the L.A. Quartet or the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy work because they're doorstoppers. When he tries to fit a story into 70 pages or so, it's just awful. I'll hang onto this just for the essays, I think. Otherwise, blah. ( )
  wordsampersand | Dec 6, 2018 |
"Destination: Morgue!" was my first experience with James Ellroy. I’d seen a couple movies that were made out of his books, but as far as his actual writing, it was my first. And let me tell you, this one wasn’t a very good “first pick.” Not that it was a bad book, but as an introduction into Ellroy, it shell shocked me a little bit. First, let me explain the book a little bit.

Destination: Morgue! is broken into two nearly equal halves. The first half is a series of non-fiction pieces, ranging from “true crime” stories of the cold case squad to autobiographical pieces about Ellroy’s life growing up. The second half is made up by a trio of novellas telling the story of a L.A. P.D. officer and his affair with a Hollywood actress.

When I started reading, none of it made sense to me. The stories seemed disjointed and incongruous. I couldn’t understand what they had to do with each other—other than giving the publisher enough text to put out another book. In addition, the language was plain annoying. Alliteration was everywhere. It made reading slow, and what’s more, it made the writing sound cheesy to the tenth power. Plus, he insists on using “metastasize” in just about every short story. I mean, it’s a really good word for decayed imagery, but come on. Use another word.

I swore to myself that this was the last Ellroy book I would read.

But as I kept plugging through it, nose on the grindstone, I gradually began to realize that nearly every piece of nonfiction in the first half of the book made an appearance (or at least got a reference) in the second half. Ellroy managed to tie them all together in some form or fashion. In addition, he continually worked older cases of L.A. P.D. fame into the stories, meshing fact and fiction in a convincing—if sometimes hard to follow—narrative.

Part of the reason that the book is hard to read is the alliteration I mentioned before. It didn’t hit me until I got to the story about the gossip column writer, but the alliteration is there because Ellroy is trying to mirror the style of a tabloid newspaper. You know the type: “Freaky female filches famed farmyard photo!” But he does so though the whole damn book. Yeah, it makes the book a bit harder to read, but the sheer genius it takes to do that through an entire 400 page work is mind boggling. And more importantly, he manages to craft great imagery while limiting himself to this vein of description. It really was quite amazing to watch the book unfold from lackluster beginnings to a great finish where he suddenly slaps you upside the head with his brilliance.

Still, it would be nice if he used “metastasize” a little less. Ah well, you can’t have everything, I guess. I gave it four stars. Had the book been more palatable from the get-go, I would have given it a perfect five. As it stands, it's not going to appeal to most people. But if you're brave and push through, I promise you you'll be rewarded. ( )
1 stem WillyMammoth | Apr 1, 2011 |
This is Ellroy's second collection of shorts, a mixture of essays from GQ magazine with three inter-linked (and previously unpublished) novellas.

If one thing unites them all, it's the alliterative, allusive authorial style of Hush-Hush magazine and Ellroy's character Danny Getchell. For some people, this makes Ellroy devilishly difficult to devour, but for me this is much of the attraction - he's almost avant-garde in the extremism of his laconic stylism.

So there's "Balls to the Wall", a boxing write-up where sentences struggle to pass the 4-word barrier; or "The Trouble I Cause", a short story about Dragnet actor Jack Webb, penned in the Getchell style.

Elsewhere there are two autobiographical tales, much like "My Dark Places" cut down for readers with short attention spans.

One piece, "Stephanie" deals with the 1965 murder of Stephanie Gorman, and with the attempts of Ellroy's three buddies in the Cold Case squad to revisit it during 2002. This provides the real-life backdrop for the three novellas, where the first thing to note is the similarity of the three main characters' names to Ellroy's real-life pals. The novellas are the heart of the book, and take detective "Rhino" Rick Jenson through three episodes ranging over roughly three decades, close encounters with classic Ellroy characters: Hollywood, killers, perverts, racists. At times, the relentless racist rancour of the anti-hero is hard to take, but they're great stories and they see Ellroy taking on welcome new themes - terrorism in "Jungletown Jihad" - while plunging passionately into post-modernism way beyond previous flirtations.

Probably one for fans only - newcomers would be better starting elsewhere. ( )
  bduguid | Sep 17, 2006 |
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» Andere auteurs toevoegen (5 mogelijk)

AuteursnaamRolType auteurWerk?Status
James Ellroyprimaire auteuralle editiesberekend
Perroni, Sergio ClaudioSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
Prosperi, CarloVertalerSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd

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James Ellroy is acknowledged as one of America's greatest living writers. As well as his critically acclaimed novels, he is a regular contributor to GQ magazine in the States. This collection will contain sixteen of these pieces, both autobiographical and crime reportage as well as a Novella- Hollywood Fuck Pad.

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