Rating: 
Summary: Brutally Honest
Review: This is a facinating read for for Ellroy fans as well as those reading him for the first time. One note of warning: If an abundence of harsh language and harsher attitudes will bother the reader, move on. But if the reader takes pleasure in open wound psyches and hammer to head honesty then grab this and immerse youself in a fascinating journey into the soul and life of a man who has lived the kind of life that should be on a poster of how not to do it. While on the surface this book is about the re-investigation of the murder of Ellroy's mother it is in fact a confessional of his life and an examination of a pervereted father-son-dead mother relationship.The difference between this book and other such confessionals is Ellroy's pull no punches examination of his own mistakes, seperate from the abuses heaped on him by his father and the terrible loss of a none too perfect mother. From peeping tom to burgler to junkie to best selling author, his story might be hard to believe if he were not so harsh on himself. A big plus to Ellroy fans is the look at many of his past deviant behaviors which he has used,to great obsessive effect,in all of his fictional books. As a side note he finally, through this work of non-fiction, turn the voyeuristic tables on the reader who will cringe all the way through, but like a car wreak has to look. All in all an incredible read
Rating:
Summary: Very Very PRIVATE Piece Of Obsession
Review: James Ellroy,an extremely original noir writer,has been obsessed by dead women.And in "My Dark Places",he finally drew ultimate "dead woman" to him--Geneva Ellroy,murdered 1958,his mother. You must be electrified and stupefied when you finished reading this. The style is less crazed than "White Jazz",though,it is totally dead-pan,even in describing his own mother's death scene. But it is not mere dry prose,there pulsing under the cold narrative,a repressed emotion that can be expressed only through such a thingistic style. In Part 4,Ellroy and a ex-detective investigate the murder of Geveva. Ellroy's pen gets really paranoiac.He reports EVERYTHING. Every store he went,every suspect they found not guilty,every telephone reporting fake information. Do they have any significance? Nothing. No evidence can be found in them. But this meaningless enumeration perfectly expresses Ellroy's craazed love toward his mother. This work must be very very private one. Never a mere memoir. This is a report on Ellroy's psychotherapy on himself,a private letter to his mother wrote in burning curse and extreme love.Reconstructing the trail of mother's life,Ellroy desparately struggles to get mother's real image. Somwhat rough piece,but a dark vibration would hit you,an indescribable force clearly dominates on every single page
Rating:
Summary: Stunning, Stirring, and Sublime
Review: A disturbing, involving, enrossing, ride through a man's hellish life and times. And search for love (of all kinds). A rip roaring detective yarn. Ellroy's writing is like Hemingway on crack...he searches for the killer of his mother and tries to find her (and his) soul in the process. Many of the reviews here do justice this extraordinary book. It moved me. It scared me. It fascinated me. Crime to Ellroy is lifeblood. We see where it all began. He is one of the great America writers.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing book. Essential for all Ellroy fans.
Review: My Dark Places chronicles James Ellroy's life and his search for his mother's murderer. It gives the reader an amazing amount of insight into the mind of one of the most important living writers. You can see the seeds of much of Ellroy's work here, especially Killer on the Road. If you want to understand Ellroy's work and his perspective, this is essential reading.However, the book stands very well on its own. Despite what some of the other reviews have said, I found myself fascinated by every element of the book including Ellroy's detailed descriptions of his young and his exposition of Stoner's past cases. One of Ellroy's best virtues in fiction is that all of his characters seems alive and vibrant if not honorable. In this book he shows the same skill in describing real people, allowing you to see into the souls of Ellroy and Stoner and understand to some degree what each man has been through. Ellroy's descriptions of his troubles and the cases Stoner was involved in only serve to reinforce one of the prime themes of his fiction, that of the world as a corrupt place. Certainly there are good people, there are innocents, but for every one of them there is someone corrupt qand capable of things the innocents would never consider. He demonstrates the struggle that each person must go through to live in this world as he did in many of his novels, such as American Tabloid, Brown's Requiem, and Killer on the Road. Ultimately, this book serves many purposes. Read as an autobiography, it reveals much about what drives Ellroy to write the books that he writes. Read for pure titilation it offers sex, violence, and drugs although classical music takes the place of rock and roll. It can also be read as an analysis of man's essential character, and an examination of the human condition. All in all, this is a monumental work.
Rating: 
Summary: The heart of darkness
Review: James Ellroy writes dark crime books. This memoir explains why. When Ellroy was ten, someone strangled his mother and left her body in a car. Her killer has never been found. The memoir documents Ellroy's life before and after the murder. In denial at first, he escaped into a life of drugs and crime. Later, Ellroy dropped the lifestyle, but maintained a fascination with crime, especially murdered women such as the famous "Black Dahlia." Ellroy's writing style swings between two extremes. At times he writes with the cool detachment of a detective. For example, he describes in extensive detail the murder scene and the state of his mother's violated body, reporting much as a uninvolved coroner might do. This unemotional style, Ellroy explains, was one method he developed to cope with his mother's death. In other parts of the memoir, though, Ellroy departs completely from this eerie detachment. He invites the reader into his "dark places," the ugly parts of himself that most people keep hidden. These scenes are some of the most intensely personal, and powerful, in the book. By writing about dark emotions and dark experiences, Ellroy is able to move past them. Part of the memoir focuses upon Ellroy's attempts, thirty years later, to track down the truth about his mother's life and death. Truth about others, much like the truths about self that Ellroy explores earlier in the memoir, prove difficult to grasp.
Rating:
Summary: Fan-tas-tic
Review: This is one of the most compelling books I have ever read. I first read it 5 or 6 years ago and I still pick it up at least once every few weeks and go over the details of the murder of Jean Ellroy.
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Summary: One man's journey to hell and back.
Review: James Ellroy was only ten years old when his mother, Jean Ellroy, was murdered in 1958. He went to live with his father, and he proceeded to run wild and gain a rather unhealthy obsession with dead women. Ellroy's father, who had unresolved problems of his own, failed to recognize his son's instability, and in fact, encouraged various unhealthy trends. Fixated on 'true crime' stories involving the murders of women, James Ellroy became a very unstable teenager, and after joining the army, he became an even more unstable young adult. Given a general discharge "Under Honorable Conditions," Ellroy plummeted into a hellish existence of crime and drugs. Ellroy must possess an incredibly strong character, for he managed, somehow, to end his path towards self-destruction, and he became a famous author. "My Dark Places" is the story of Ellroy's early life, his mother's murder, Ellroy's return to sanity, and finally Ellroy's attempts to solve his mother's murder. Trying to solve Jean Ellroy's murder was James Ellroy's homage to his mother, and in the book, he comes to grips with issues most of us, thank goodness, never have to face. Jean Ellroy's murder was tainted with 50's prudishness, and Ellroy has to face the idea that his mother may have known her killer, and that the secrecy surrounding her social life may have contributed to her murder. By far one of the most fascinating aspects of this book is Ellroy's relationship with LA Homicide detective, Bill Stoner. The two search for clues in the trail that turned cold 36 years before, and as Ellroy and Stoner try to piece the crime together, it is clear that both men are haunted by their own demons. Ellroy details some of the crimes that Stoner investigated throughout his career, and conclusions--brutal conclusions--about the murder of women are drawn from Ellroy's and Stoner's collective experiences. I have never read any of Ellroy's novels, and this sort of book was a complete change of pace for me. Ellroy spares no punches--against the killers or against himself as he describes events. He coldly analyzes his own behaviour just as he analyzes the many killers within these pages. Many parts of the book are rather difficult to read as the book includes details of murders--Jean Ellroy's and many others--a haunting, and unforgettable read, and James Ellroy really should be commended for his efforts for victims and their families everywhere--displacedhuman.
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Summary: Living With the Dead
Review: Like all great crime novels, Ellroy's memoir starts with a compelling murder. Kids playing baseball would find her body in some ivy in El Monte, California. From a discheveled dress and an exposed upper chest, to ligatures constricted with such force they were only three inches in diameter, Ellroy describes the crime scene and those opening weeks of the investigation with his familiar staccato style. There is more here than meets the eye, however. We begin to see a picture of a 10 year old boy who's entire life has been ruled by a crime; not just any crime, but the brutal murder of that pretty redheaded woman in the ivy. Her name was Jean Ellroy. That boy is author James Ellroy. She had gotten a divorce and started over in El Monte with her son. She tried to balance the two worlds of her drinking and promiscuity with her work as a nurse and the solid life she was trying to give her son. Those two worlds would merge on a King's Row curb. This memoir is a dance of reconcilliation for Ellroy, and an attempt to separate her death from her life and make her ghost come alive as a real person. Brutal and unflinching in its honesty, this memoir is not for the weak. It is a true crime story that reads like a police procedural. The crimes are real. The people are messed up. The names have not been changed beacause there are no innocents. Once we realize this is Ellroy's love letter to his slain mother, we can't put it down. Ellroy describes in detail and with brutal candor the bitterness between his mother and father and the war fought for his loyalty. Once she was dead, he would both obsess over, and run from her murder his entire life. He spouted Nazi propoganda and hate just to get attention. The parenting skills of his father, which can best be described as permissive neglect, left him too much freedom and time. It was time he would use for elaborate fantasies about his mother. He would form an obsession with the Betty Short-Black Dahlia murder. In every fantasy, Ellroy would somehow save the women and they would be grateful. He could not save his mother. He was still running. His running and obsessing would lead to years of drugs and alcohol abuse, escalating into voyeurism and breaking into homes. The temporary highs were an escape that would come to a screaching halt when too many years of drugs and alcohol would cause his brain to suddenly take a time out. When Ellroy gets his mind working again, he gets work as a golf caddy and starts writing crime novels. After some success, he finally decides to face his mother's ghost by solving her murder. This memoir has just begun. Detective Bill Stoner was living with dead women as well and Ellroy brings them all to life for the reader as he takes us into the world of cops and crime. Cops like Stoner knew about obsession. Ellroy explains that almost all homicide cops love the old film "Laura." They have all fallen in love with dead girls just like Dana Andrews does. Stoner was leaving the job after 32 years, the last 12 in homicide. He was willing to help Ellroy in his quest. He was a well known and respected cop. He was responsible for solving the famous Cotton Club murder. He understood Ellroy. He was living with dead girls. Ellroy pays homage to the ghosts of Stoner's women, making sure you will always remember names like Bunny Krauch and Susan Hamway. You will remember a baby murdered by proxy. Perhaps foremost, you will remember a young and innocent Tracy Lea Stewart. She would be picked up by Robbie Beckett and brought to Daddy Beckett like a lamb to slaughter. She would be raped and murdered. Convictions would not equal closure. The reader spends over a year with Stoner and Ellroy as they probe the memories of old cops and witnesses and chase down leads. They would go public in GQ Magazine and on TV with Unsolved Mysteries. Though this memoir is brutal and sad, it is also tense and exciting, and at times, very funny. I can not tell you the ending, or even if there is one. You have to read this for yourself. What I have described of this brilliant book is only the tip of the iceberg. You will never forget this after reading it. You will never forget a lot of things......
Rating:
Summary: A MORAL INVENTORY
Review: The places James Ellroy boldly takes us ARE, without exaggeration, dark and scary and kind of banal which is why they're so wierd. I started to wonder whom he imagined his readers were, given that his language and approach are startling and bone-crunching, but I don't think he has an imagined audience. If there is any at all, it's himself. He's writing for himself to get it out of his head and it's a bold expurgation. The redhead is James Ellroy's mother who was murdered on a dark road outside an El Monte high school in 1958 when the author was 10 and the victim was 42 years old. Confused and disoriented as only a 10 year old from a raging broken home can be, Ellroy grows up - or at least advances in years since real maturity comes later - perversely relieved to be rid of his mother and develops major addiction problems and asocial behavior. In recovery terms, much of the book seems to serve as Ellroy's fourth step (a moral inventory of oneself) and is both oddly delicious and repellant. The real punch comes when Ellroy is determined to find his mother's killer, the so-called Swarthy Man, but in fact begins to discover who that redhead is and how she found herself on a dark road in El Monte after a Saturday night of bar-hopping. No criticism or re-interpretations can be proffered. The guy lost his mother to an unknown murderer. Who can fully understand what that means?
Rating:
Summary: Gripping!
Review: James Ellroy may be Amrica's most talented crime writer. In his novels there are no good and evil characters. Everyone is flawed to some degree. Good and evil are more like shades of gray, rather than black and white. As James Ellroy goes back into his childhood to write about, and attempt to solve, the murder of his mother, he gives an almost autobiographical account of his life, especially his early years. Ellroy describes his guilty feelings at the excitement that he would permanently live with his father after his mother was murdered. It appears that when she was alive, he felt no love for his mother, in fact he hated her lifestyle. Ellroy may be a little to blunt in his criticisms of his mother, given his own penchant for booze and sex. Ellroy temed up with a soon to retire LA County Sheriff's Detective, and snooped around the Jean Ellroy case, as well as another unsolved case. This book gives an interesting account of growing up in Los Angeles and the surrounding communities. Everything about this book was fascinating, and I could not put it down. Like his characters, Ellroy and his family are neither clearly good or evil, but more like shades of gray.
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