Thursday, July 22, 2021

My Dark Genre

 

As a writer, I have a certain respect for James Ellroy’s My Dark Places.  This account of his mother’s unsolved murder reads like an object lesson in uncompromising engagement with the writer’s deep self.  There is a less appealing part of this work as well; as he is a mystery/detective writer, this book goes places I never would, uses language that is not suited to our time, and in the process, no doubt, is insulting to many people.  Yet I am drawn to the brutal honesty, as I am repulsed by many of the characterizations.


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