A review by johnnyb1954
American Tabloid by James Ellroy

2.0

I got about half way through and probably won't finish. It's over long and over the top and over rated. The racial epithets, the gross sexual proclivities, the violence are all objectionable because they are just sensational, gratuitous flash - they don't illuminate the characters or help understands the times. All the white male characters are the same. All the Cubans are just extras and as subservient to the plot as they are to the characters in the book. This novel supposedly lays bare the Mafia/CIA/FBI intertwining a that led to the JFK assassination. But every character and plot development n the book is so unbelievable. it makes the conspiracy theories seem completely absurd. It seems that Elroy just made up characters and assigned them the names of real people such as Hughes, Hoffa, Hoover, etc. yes, I realize some of their "quirks" depicted here are historically accurate, but they are drawn too cartoonishly. Perhaps I should have taken more of a clue from the title. It a tabloid like the Weekly World News.