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A review by ohmyvisage
The Hilliker Curse by James Ellroy
2.0
Why does there always have to be a sex memoir?
That's the primary thought that will go for your head for the first 40 or so pages of the slim and easily read memoir from the Demon Dog.
After that, however, it does turn its gaze from lurid bedroom exploits to the tortured, tortured mind of the author. In case you hadn't read My Dark Places before this one, James Ellroy's mother was murdered when he was 9 years old and it might have messed him up in the head just a little bit. My Dark Places was a pretty grim memoir that detailed a lot of his trauma, this work goes even further and actively makes me wonder how he has managed to have such an illustrious career with all these ghosts in his brain.
The middle section is the most engaging and insightful into Ellroy himself, and details the difficult, post LA Confidential adaptation, part of his life. Trying to top his masterpiece American Tabloid while his marriage disintegrates. He never says it, but Ellroy almost certainly has some form of OCD and suffers a mental breakdown. The description of which are suffocating and convey his agony well.
The rest of the book, was still engaging but significantly less so since you see him make the same mistakes he made earlier in his life again and again. There are also fewer insights into his works, aside from hints at film and TV projects that never materialized.
There was a surprising amount of ink given to his early, pre LA Quartet novels. He trashes them, but I actually really enjoyed them and enjoyed hearing more about their birth.
All in all, I would only recommend this for Ellroy fanatics like myself. My Dark Places works as a literature and as a memoir, but The Hilliker Curse is only for those who want salacious news about the author.
It is rather funny that Ellroy's predictions all came to nothing in the end. The woman he decribes as HER and his salvation ended their relationship not long after The Hilliker Curse came out; he's now back with his 2nd wife, novelist Helen Knode.
That's the primary thought that will go for your head for the first 40 or so pages of the slim and easily read memoir from the Demon Dog.
After that, however, it does turn its gaze from lurid bedroom exploits to the tortured, tortured mind of the author. In case you hadn't read My Dark Places before this one, James Ellroy's mother was murdered when he was 9 years old and it might have messed him up in the head just a little bit. My Dark Places was a pretty grim memoir that detailed a lot of his trauma, this work goes even further and actively makes me wonder how he has managed to have such an illustrious career with all these ghosts in his brain.
The middle section is the most engaging and insightful into Ellroy himself, and details the difficult, post LA Confidential adaptation, part of his life. Trying to top his masterpiece American Tabloid while his marriage disintegrates. He never says it, but Ellroy almost certainly has some form of OCD and suffers a mental breakdown. The description of which are suffocating and convey his agony well.
The rest of the book, was still engaging but significantly less so since you see him make the same mistakes he made earlier in his life again and again. There are also fewer insights into his works, aside from hints at film and TV projects that never materialized.
There was a surprising amount of ink given to his early, pre LA Quartet novels. He trashes them, but I actually really enjoyed them and enjoyed hearing more about their birth.
All in all, I would only recommend this for Ellroy fanatics like myself. My Dark Places works as a literature and as a memoir, but The Hilliker Curse is only for those who want salacious news about the author.
It is rather funny that Ellroy's predictions all came to nothing in the end. The woman he decribes as HER and his salvation ended their relationship not long after The Hilliker Curse came out; he's now back with his 2nd wife, novelist Helen Knode.