In the 80s and 90s James Ellroy defined modern American noir. Seminal books such as LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia and White Jazz with their hard-boiled mix of hipster speak, clipped stream of conciousness prose and a paranoid, parallel hinterland of pseudo history set the template for an entire, reinvigorated genre. Ellroy placed American noir back into the lineage of Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Elmore Leonard and Dashiell Hammett from whence it had strayed and his achievement cannot be overstated.

Now you can’t move for expansive, hard-boiled takes on American history as told through its underbelly. So much so, it’s almost impossible to imagine 21st century American crime without him. This influence reaches way beyond fiction and even if we bet without every American crime novel written since The Black Dahlia, no Ellroy would also mean, for better or worse, no Sopranos, Pulp Fiction, Dexter or Red Riding. Even things a million miles from the mean streets of LA, like Mad Men and Deadwood owe a less obvious but nonetheless meaningful debt to Ellroy. As I said, his achievement really cannot be overstated.

We last encountered James Ellroy in 2001 when The Cold Six Thousand became part 2 of his sweeping Underworld USA trilogy. This trilogy was if anything even more ambitious than the utterly brilliant LA Quartet, and the first part, American Tabloid had much to admire and enjoy. Truth be told though, The Cold Six Thousand was not an easy book to love. Following the relatively straightforward narrative of American Tabloid, Ellroy’s style had crystallised diamond hard, making no allowances for the reader and offering no helping hands. Was The Cold Six Thousand pointing a new way forward or simply the full stop at the end of what had gone before?

Sorry to say having ended a nine year hiatus with Blood’s A Rover, it seems the latter is true. Time and imitators have caught up with Ellroy’s style and obsessions. Caught up and run on. Blood’s A Rover is of course not a bad book, it even at times approaches excellence. But this is now an earthbound run-of-the-mill excellence rather than the unhinged  brilliance of yore.

And in being repetitive and self-referential it seems Ellroy has finally succumbed to schtick. Blood’s A Rover covers 1963 to 68 but the overriding tone of voice remains hipster jazz. Culturally the 60s simply haven’t happened in Blood’s A Rover and this LA feels no different to the LA of Ellroy’s 1950s. And that surely can’t be right. Also his paranoid belief in shadowy forces controlling the world has become the norm. Cliched even. The world has moved on but Ellroy has not and although obstinance is a good Ellroy-esque trait, Blood’s A Rover at times resembles a tired parody of a great Ellroy.

Having said that I am judging him by his own standards not those of lesser writers. I was glad to visit his world one more time but newcomers beware, it can be exhausting. Ellroy once meant as much to me as any writer ever has, but the sad realisation is that for me the thrill is gone. Ellroy certainly hasn’t changed, perhaps I have –  so I part ways with an old love saying it’s not you, it’s me.

Bookmark to