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A review by actuallycurtis
American Tabloid by James Ellroy
1.0
Reprehensible and inept.
The characters are almost entirely identical: They talk the same, they think the same, they all stumble through the plot in the same way: numb, cocksure, and without any discernible motivation for any of their actions. This book lacks even the cookie-cutter archetypes of a standard noir, which it so clearly wants to be. Instead, each character simply goes from crime to crime with no particular purpose. They are devoid of morals, but Ellroy has failed to give anything interesting to make up for that. They seem to care a little about money, but not particularly. Why do things happen? Who the fuck knows. Things happen, and the characters consistently pat themselves on the back for their actions, but it's all meaningless. Near the end of the book, there is a clumsy attempt at giving each of the main characters a motivation, but by that point it is so late, and so much has happened, that it no longer matters.
The plot is essentially a shaggy dog story. Alliances shift and twist, but not towards any particular goal. Characters frequently have to repeat to themselves and each other exactly what is happening, because the plot changes so often. Characters will instantly offer up indiscretions to people they have just met for the sole purpose of either re-explaining the current plot or to give another character some leverage, to force yet another shift in allegiances and power. Every plot point is cartoonish, an over-the-top attempt at shocking the reader via sex (typically homosexual sex) or violence. It quickly gets boring.
I'll give Ellroy the benefit of the doubt and assume that the narrator is not Ellroy, but simply a character whom we never meet. In that case, the narrator is a racist, homophobic, fumbling writer. Although he tries to write in a Chandler-esque hard-boiled noir style, with short, choppy sentences, he isn't an adept enough writer to pull it off. Sentences end up limp and vague, with ambiguous pronouns and misplaced modifiers littered throughout. The only reason this doesn't completely stall any forward momentum is that Ellroy tells, rather than shows. He describes little actual action, and instead has the characters tell and retell each other what has happened, or is happening.
However, even assuming the narrator is not Ellroy, there are two problems that fall purely in Ellroy's lap: the dialogue and the document inserts. Every character in this book speaks in the exact same way. The dialogue of Pete Bondurant, a gigantic French-Canadian tough, and the dialogue of Kemper Boyd, a highly educated FBI agent from Tennessee, are both interchangeable. Ellroy is obsessed with regional dialects (characters often remark on the accents or dialects of other characters), and yet Ellroy has a tin ear for human speech. The only time Ellroy changes any dialogue at all is for his Jewish characters, who throw in an absurd number of Yiddish terms into their conversations. Then, there are the document inserts: They read like more Ellroy, rather than any sort of official document.
This isn't a novel, it's a conspiracy theory, and as such it shares the problems of most conspiracy theories. It is sprawling, tying in every conceivable person in the area with no rhyme or reason. Any famous person from the late 50s and early 60s shows up here. Ellroy's favorite tactic is to name-drop a celebrity and then casually mention what sexual deviancy they were guilty of. Ellroy is obsessed with certain details, such as the makes and models of firearms, but knows nothing about the other elements, such as what happens when someone gets shot, or when a toaster is thrown into a sink, et cetera. The few action scenes in the book are therefore rushed through, with ludicrous all caps lines such as "The Molotov hit the pavement AND DID NOT SHATTER."
The book also shares the biggest problem of most conspiracy theories: a basic lack of understanding of how humans behave. It treats each person as essentially identical, a person to put in place, as if the plot were a chess puzzle, and you merely need to worry about getting each piece in the right location at the right time, and it doesn't matter how or why they got there.
This book is garbage.
The characters are almost entirely identical: They talk the same, they think the same, they all stumble through the plot in the same way: numb, cocksure, and without any discernible motivation for any of their actions. This book lacks even the cookie-cutter archetypes of a standard noir, which it so clearly wants to be. Instead, each character simply goes from crime to crime with no particular purpose. They are devoid of morals, but Ellroy has failed to give anything interesting to make up for that. They seem to care a little about money, but not particularly. Why do things happen? Who the fuck knows. Things happen, and the characters consistently pat themselves on the back for their actions, but it's all meaningless. Near the end of the book, there is a clumsy attempt at giving each of the main characters a motivation, but by that point it is so late, and so much has happened, that it no longer matters.
The plot is essentially a shaggy dog story. Alliances shift and twist, but not towards any particular goal. Characters frequently have to repeat to themselves and each other exactly what is happening, because the plot changes so often. Characters will instantly offer up indiscretions to people they have just met for the sole purpose of either re-explaining the current plot or to give another character some leverage, to force yet another shift in allegiances and power. Every plot point is cartoonish, an over-the-top attempt at shocking the reader via sex (typically homosexual sex) or violence. It quickly gets boring.
I'll give Ellroy the benefit of the doubt and assume that the narrator is not Ellroy, but simply a character whom we never meet. In that case, the narrator is a racist, homophobic, fumbling writer. Although he tries to write in a Chandler-esque hard-boiled noir style, with short, choppy sentences, he isn't an adept enough writer to pull it off. Sentences end up limp and vague, with ambiguous pronouns and misplaced modifiers littered throughout. The only reason this doesn't completely stall any forward momentum is that Ellroy tells, rather than shows. He describes little actual action, and instead has the characters tell and retell each other what has happened, or is happening.
However, even assuming the narrator is not Ellroy, there are two problems that fall purely in Ellroy's lap: the dialogue and the document inserts. Every character in this book speaks in the exact same way. The dialogue of Pete Bondurant, a gigantic French-Canadian tough, and the dialogue of Kemper Boyd, a highly educated FBI agent from Tennessee, are both interchangeable. Ellroy is obsessed with regional dialects (characters often remark on the accents or dialects of other characters), and yet Ellroy has a tin ear for human speech. The only time Ellroy changes any dialogue at all is for his Jewish characters, who throw in an absurd number of Yiddish terms into their conversations. Then, there are the document inserts: They read like more Ellroy, rather than any sort of official document.
This isn't a novel, it's a conspiracy theory, and as such it shares the problems of most conspiracy theories. It is sprawling, tying in every conceivable person in the area with no rhyme or reason. Any famous person from the late 50s and early 60s shows up here. Ellroy's favorite tactic is to name-drop a celebrity and then casually mention what sexual deviancy they were guilty of. Ellroy is obsessed with certain details, such as the makes and models of firearms, but knows nothing about the other elements, such as what happens when someone gets shot, or when a toaster is thrown into a sink, et cetera. The few action scenes in the book are therefore rushed through, with ludicrous all caps lines such as "The Molotov hit the pavement AND DID NOT SHATTER."
The book also shares the biggest problem of most conspiracy theories: a basic lack of understanding of how humans behave. It treats each person as essentially identical, a person to put in place, as if the plot were a chess puzzle, and you merely need to worry about getting each piece in the right location at the right time, and it doesn't matter how or why they got there.
This book is garbage.