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American Tabloid (Underworld USA #1)

4.21 of 5 stars 4.21 · rating details · 5,975 ratings · 374 reviews

The same hard-edged, no-holds-barred rendering of reality that has marked James Ellroy's other bestselling novels (White Jazz; L.A. Confidential; The Big Nowhere) is here in abundance, in the story of three renegade law-enforcement officers who shape the events of the early '60s with their greed and hatred.

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Published (first published 1995)

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Jul 06, 2009 brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

to paraphrase kris kristofferson: if it sounds fucked up, man, that's because it is.

sometimes i chug coffee to the point where i'm glazed with sweat, red-eyed, about to crap my pants, and i throw my headphones on and blast either miles davis bitches brew or motorhead ace of spades. i sit down in front of the computer and write write write. and the result is exactly what you'd imagine from a mediocre writer w/a flair for the hyperbolic all hopped up on caffeine. not too good. imagine, however, i...more

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Sep 19, 2009 Kemper rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-mystery, historical-fiction, signed-by-author, modern-lit, favorites

James Ellroy has called me a panty sniffer to my face. Granted, he calls everyone at his book signings a variety of colorful names, but I still like the idea that I’ve been personally mock-insulted by one of my favorite authors. And this is his greatest novel. I love this freaking book. It’s one of my all-time favorites. My internet alias is from a character in this book. I’ve got an autographed copy of it sitting on my shelf along with an autographed copy of the sequel, The Cold Six Thousand. T...more

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Aug 24, 2009 Greg rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

Check out the prose. Dig the style. Raymond Carver looks verbose. Hemingway looks weak and fey.

Dig the streamlined story. 1500 pages of plot compacted into 576.

Dig the violence. The greed. The manipulations, the conspiracies.

Check out the Outfit. The Beard. The Cadre. Jimmy and the Klan. The Hair and Little Brother all gunning towards history like a hophead mainlining a speedball.

Check out the geek posing at writing this review.

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Oct 24, 2011 Ian Graye rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cryme-fick-shun, reviews, ellroy

On Tour

In 1996, Ellroy toured Australia with one of my favourite bands, the Jackson Code.
Ellroy did a number of readings from AT, then the band played and then he sang/narrated with the band.
It was a great night, although I am hazy on the detail.
It was an early date with my wife, and I didn't get as drunk as I would otherwise have done (and do now), but I am hazy nevertheless.
I don't know how they got the idea to do a gig like this.
I remember that Ellroy wore a great Hawaiian shirt.
He looked lik...more

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Oct 25, 2010 Gus Sanchez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow.

Yeah. Wow.

This was my first James Ellroy novel, and he did not disappoint. On the contrary, I developed a major hard-on for his hard-assed prose, and his dark, morally ambiguous characters - gotta say Pete Bondurant is now one of my favorite fictional characters ever.

I won't bore you with the details or the plot behind "American Tabloid", the first in a trilogy of works sketching out the nefarious doings of those in power, but if you love fiction that's both hard-edged and replete with his...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Jonfaith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(this was a diversion, something to transport)

Much of the GR community shares a united front on American Tabloid, comparing it to meth or serial lines of blow, Ellroy is credited with thousands of pages of plot stripped down to slide into a mere 600 page volume. There is a measure of truth in said consensus. Well some of the metaphors do work. It does often appear that an acetylene torch is applied to the reader's soul. Events do come tumbling into focus and then disappear in the span of a few p...more

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Dec 27, 2007 Jeff rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: central north carolina

while ellroy's chandler-on-crack routine is exhausting stylistically [mock sample excerpt: "this spic commie was a real cooze hound. dig his geeked-out arsenal: 20 30.06 shells, three silencer-rigged .45s, a rapemobile-mounted shotgun. agency/outfit sanctioned figured kemper boyd."], _american tabloid_'s dark reimagining of early-60s optimism as a cesspool of cynical political power plays underscored by mixed alliances, double- and triple-crosses, and the reduction of the era's most "powerful/in...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Maciek rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, thriller-mystery-suspense, big-tomes, read-in-2012, reviewed

America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can’t ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can’t lose what you lacked at conception.

Conspiracy theorists have been among us since the inception of mankind. Whenever an event of a particular scale and importance happens they will be there, in the background, quietly (well, not always) disputing the official story and proposing alternative explanations. Con...more America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can’t ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can’t lose what you lacked at conception.

Conspiracy theorists have been among us since the inception of mankind. Whenever an event of a particular scale and importance happens they will be there, in the background, quietly (well, not always) disputing the official story and proposing alternative explanations. Conspiracists cover all sorts of events - from school grades (the tests were rigged), football games (they were rigged), business deals (rigged) to matters of great importance, like the presidential elections (guess what). The largel the scale of event, the bigger the conspiracy behind it - global warming is a good example (Michael Crichton wrote a book focused exactly on this - it's titled State of Fear. I'll have to read it one day). Perhaps the most interesting (and often outlandish) conspiracy theories arise in events involving violence and murder. Assasinations provide good fodder - murders of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and of course President Kennedy all gave life (bad pun) to conspiracies which were supposed to surround them. The US government seems to always be at least a partial perpetrator of American conspiracies - a prime example are the 9/11 attacks on America. There are people who believe that the buildings have been brought down by a controlled demolition, but these are the calm ones. The real conspiracists dispute even the existence of hijacked planes - they believe that missiles hit the towers, and they only looked like the planes because of CGI. Passengers and crew of the planes said to be hijacked have been either killed by the government or live calm, brainwashed lives on some small Carribean island.

These theories originate in our need to seek patterns and explanations of things. Sometimes it's hard for us to accept that in life things happen which are completely random, driven by chance. This also gives plenty of opportunity for the employment of our creative imagination. Elaborate schemes and structures are made up to fit the seemingly obvious conclusion - how could a few men wield the knife right into the heart of America without powerful help from the inside? How can a single, unremarkable man kill the most powerful man on earth? Surely he was just a puppet, whose strings were pulled by the group who selected him, put him in the proper place and gave him the gun.

American Tabloid is concerned with the JFK assasination, and allows James Ellory to invent conspiracy upon conspiracy, basing on his fascination with the American underworld. Set all over the USA and some other areas in the late 50's and early 60's, Ellroy's novel draws real historical characters - The Kennedy brothers, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimy Hoffa, Jack Ruby among others - and mixes them with Ellroy's fictional creations; all breathe and speak and feel and are alive, and if we did not know otherwise it would be difficult to tell that there was no Pete Bondurant, Ward Littel or Kemper Boyd. Ellroy is completely unsentimental towards the real and imagined characters, and knows the period he's writing about, henceforth they come at the reader with all their dirt, racism, swindling and corruption which altogether is all too human. As the novel progreses it becomes difficult to separate Ellroy's fiction from historical fact, which perhaps is the greatest compliment one can give to a novel which aims at succeeding in exactly that; given the fact that we never will be allowed such an intimate look at lives of the rich and the deadly, these novels are all we've got. And this one is particularly good; in it Ellroy packs more punches than Mike Tyson in his best bout. His writing is what carries it; it's gritty and taut, stripped of all excessive fat, unnecesary adjectives and adverbs all ripped of, leaving only the bare bone to offend you with its wrong whiteness. Ellroy's prose is a tribute to all the hardboiled classics of the past and it might take some using to, but once you do the novels pulls you right in and won't let go. Another, less skilled writer might have taken twice as many pages; Ellroy leaves Hemingway coughing in the dust. What he has done in American Tabloid has almost a hypnotic quality to itself; with all its violence you almost want to look away but it's simply too compelling and gripping. To say more would spoil it; go and try it. Chances are you'll like it just as much as I did.

This if the first novel in a sequence of three works (I hesitate to call it a trilogy) concerned with the American underworld; the second one is called The Cold Six Thousand and the last one is Blood's a Rover. You bet that I'll be reading them, though I think I need a bit of a rest first, and perhaps a detox, too.(less)

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Feb 28, 2009 Andy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pulp-fiction

Great thriller about the Bay of Pigs-Kill Castro-JFK pissing off the Mafia and the CIA in one fell swoop story, which culminates in Dallas Texas on November 22, 1963. Although I didn't care for the Kennedys depicted as a bunch of effeminate spoiled brats in power - that's the POV that their weaselly conspirators had and it digests for us what follows soon after. Ellroy's last great book. It was all downhill after this.

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Jan 29, 2013 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This embellished historical fiction, which could easily be the real story, never let up from start to finish. The characters, both fictitious and historical, are rich as they are malevolent. I found myself invested in characters' success and survival in spite of their egregious behavior. In a sense, the book is a vacation from ethics and decency. The story is a romp through the underside of popularized contemporary American history, revelling in its own perversity and how it twists the character...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: recommended

I don't think I have ever quite read anything like this. Half of the characters are fictional, but the other half are actual people. Ellroy doesn't make up the major events, like the Bay of Pigs or the JFK assassination. But he has to be making up most of their dialogue. Not sure if he is making up some of the more strange personality traits of people like Howard Hughes (loves sex scandals) or Edgar J Hoover (became a sort of vampire).

What I liked most is Ellroy's premise: Jack Kennedy was not...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Terry Cornell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Hollywood celebrities, industrial magnates, rogue government agents, and a die-hard political machine. No, I’m not talking about the 2008 Presidential campaign…or am I?

American Tabloid (1995) is the first of James Ellroy’s American Underworld Trilogy. The story begins on November 22, 1958 and interweaves the exploits of three fictional law enforcement agents with factual people and historic events, culminating in John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Not only does Ellroy create complex fictional prota...more Hollywood celebrities, industrial magnates, rogue government agents, and a die-hard political machine. No, I’m not talking about the 2008 Presidential campaign…or am I?

American Tabloid (1995) is the first of James Ellroy’s American Underworld Trilogy. The story begins on November 22, 1958 and interweaves the exploits of three fictional law enforcement agents with factual people and historic events, culminating in John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Not only does Ellroy create complex fictional protagonists, he magically breathes life into J. Edgar Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa, Howard Hughes, and others. He seems to know what only a personal therapist could, including the not-so-gallant attributes of some of America’s most revered leaders.

Those familiar with Ellroy’s style in his traditional, hardboiled crime fiction will find more of the same here. Although this book is lengthy, it’s broken into chapters from each protagonist’s point of view.

Debonair Kemper Boyd is Hoover’s FBI point-man keeping tabs on the Kennedys. Worshipping money and power, he finds himself working for the FBI, Robert Kennedy, the CIA, and the mob. Ward Littell, ex-Jesuit seminarian and former Boyd protégé, is an idealistic FBI man who shares Bobby Kennedy’s hatred of organized crime, but he learns that, in this world, allegiances shift like the wind. Pete Bondurant is a former L.A. County Sheriff sacked for beating a prisoner to death. He becomes a Howard Hughes fixer, one of Jimmy Hoffa’s hired guns and, through ties with Kemper Boyd, trainer of cadres of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and assorted redneck mercenaries.

The second novel in the series, The Cold Six Thousand (2001), starts with JFK’s death and concludes with the assassinations of RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blood’s a Rover will complete the series and is tentatively scheduled for release in 2009. The story will span 1968 through 1973, Vietnam, and the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

While we all know the ending of American Tabloid, it’s the unanswered questions and whirlwind involvement of our protagonists that keep us reading. It was challenging separating Ellroy’s fiction from fact, but I developed a better understanding of political history, including why so many groups and individuals wanted JFK gone. I anticipate the journey through The Cold Six Thousand and Blood’s a Rover. Each book should stand strong alone; James Ellroy nails the historical/political thriller genre.(less)

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Jul 25, 2012 Jack rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My favorite writer of all time! Back in 1996 I was reading a lot of non-fiction and biographies covering topics such as Organize Crime/Bay of Pigs/CIA/FBI/Howard Hughes/J.Edgar Hoover/JFK Assassination/True Crime/Forensic Psychology. I had read a stellar review of American Tabloid but it wasn't until I found a used copy at a thrift store when I was vacationing back east with my girl-friend that I finally read it.

I think the text from the cover sums it all up-

"We are behind, and below, the scene...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Zorba rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

American Tabloid è Kennedy come non l'avete mai visto.
Basta idolatrarlo solo perchè è diventato un martire dopo la sua uccisione.
American Tabloid è la storia Americana dal '59 al '63, anni di sotterfugi e di politica sotterranea, fatti dalla mafia, da un FBI dominata dall'ambigue J.Edgar Hoov er, di una CIA che addestra esuli cubani per rovesciare la dittatura comunista di Castro a Cuba.

Su questo substrato si muovono i protagonisti: Kemper Boyd, agente FBI che lavora per i Kennedy e poi anche pe...more

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Dec 27, 2011 C. Zampa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What can I say about this book? It just topped 'LA Confidential' as my favorite James Ellroy novel.

Gritty, fast-paced, powerful. I LOVE Ellroy's unique style---as though he's jamming notes while ducking gunfire---and it's showcased beautifully in this work. So simple, so basic, yet with such a humongous impact.

Think 1960's---Bay of Pigs Invasion---the Mob---Jimmy Hoffa---JFK and little brother Bobby---the Rat Pack.

Add three fabulous, perfectly fleshed Ellroy characters: Kemper Boyd, Ward Litte...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Michael rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bullshit, mystery-thriller

This is the first Ellroy I've read, and it will likely be the last. Mostly because I find it impossible to take this seriously.

I don't doubt for a minute his portrayal of mobsters and G-men and teamsters run amok in the fifties and sixties; I'm sure they were just as violent and hellbent on mayhem as they're depicted here. His gloss on the Bay of Pigs jibes, too. There is one neat bit of business following a character's slow arc from soft-skinned do-gooder alcoholic into revenge-driven killer. B...more

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Jul 23, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

James Ellroy may have an ego that outweighs his 600 page books (he has compared himself in crime fiction as Beethoven is to music and Tolstoy is to the Russian novel), but he writes with a swagger that you can't deny. This is the first of the Underworld USA trilogy, dealing with political events in the US from 1958 to 1973 and Ellroy's own creative conspiracy theories as to what could have happened. This book 1 deals with 1958 to 1963 featuring the battle between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover...more

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Jun 12, 2011 Hood rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bound: Re-Digging American Tabloid

SunPost Weekly April 14, 2011 | John Hood
http://bit.ly/gkb6Rc

50 Years After the Bay of Pigs, Ellroy’s Fiction Reads Like Mad Fact

‘Twas one of those weekends. I’d neither the time nor the inclination to hit the town, nor was I up to putting my nose to the ol’ proverbial grindstone. I wanted to get outta my head, and the wild world in which I live, even if only for one dogged day. Unfortunately I’d read every single work of fiction to come across my doorstep over...more Bound: Re-Digging American Tabloid

SunPost Weekly April 14, 2011 | John Hood
http://bit.ly/gkb6Rc

50 Years After the Bay of Pigs, Ellroy’s Fiction Reads Like Mad Fact

‘Twas one of those weekends. I’d neither the time nor the inclination to hit the town, nor was I up to putting my nose to the ol’ proverbial grindstone. I wanted to get outta my head, and the wild world in which I live, even if only for one dogged day. Unfortunately I’d read every single work of fiction to come across my doorstep over the past five years. Fortunately, over that period I’d also amassed a rather large library. Among the many fine volumes to stand on my ever-burdened shelves is James Ellroy’s American Tabloid (Vintage $14.95).

Ellroy fans already know that American Tabloid is part one of his epic Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy. Severed into five sections of an even 100 chapters, the nearly 600-page masterwork first racked back in 1995, and it’s been re-racked and re-applauded with every sequel. But you need not read 2001’s The Cold Six Thousand (Vintage $15.95) or 2009’s Blood’s a Rover (Vintage $15.95) to get the gist of this take on America’s shady history (though I highly recommend you do so); you need only to sit back, open your mind and dig the wild ride.

And what a spectacularly wild ride it is. In fact, from the very get Ellroy tips you off that this fiction is gonna be a ride like no other you’ve taken before — or since:

“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can’t ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can’t lose what you lacked at conception… It’s time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It’s time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define their time. Here’s to them.”

Indeed. The bad men Ellroy embraces in Tabloid are culled from both fact and his fiction and they comprise the best of the very worst elements that society ever had to offer. On the factual side there are mad cats such as career FBI operative Guy Banister, who New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison alleged was part of the Kennedy Assassination, and long-time CIA hand Chuck Rogers, who also may or may not have had a hand in killing our 35th president, as well as his own parents, who were found dead in their Frigidaire in what came to be called “The Icebox Murders.”

On the fictive side, and at turns taking the wheel for this wildest of rides, are Pete Bondurant. AKA Frenchman Pete, AKA The Shakedown King, who, Wiki helpfully reminds us, “bears resemblances to earlier Ellroy creation, Buzz Meeks” (The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and Hollywood Nocturnes’ “Since I Don’t Have You”); Kemper Boyd, an FBI agent who J. Edgar Hoover recruits to spy on the Kennedys, and whose ties to both the CIA and the Outfit are inextricable and legion; and Ward Littell, another FBI field op, whose single-minded crusades lead to multiple and murderous duplicities. Bondurant’s a stone cold killer. Boyd’s the classic over-achieving social climber. Littell is the initially weak link that will eventually forge undeniable bonds. And the three — together and separately — commit some of the most egregious and outlandish crimes ever to be considered, let alone written for all the world to witness.

Many of those crimes — all of which are committed in the name of money and country — lead to the debacle known as The Bay of Pigs, which happened exactly 50 years ago this week. And it is Kennedy’s waffling on that historic occasion which cores and then drives the latter half of Tabloid. Seems our fearless leader wasn’t as fearless as everyone believed him to be, especially where Castro (and Krushchev and Bobby K) were concerned. And more than a few bad men weren’t too happy about it. Okay, so JFK did lead us through the Cuban Missile Crisis. But at what price?

Well, as every schoolkid now knows, it was the price his life. We may never know just who killed Kennedy. But if the supporting cast of mobbed-up characters are taken into consideration, the whys are easily — and somewhat frighteningly — catalogued. If you dig your history pushed to the outer limits and written with a fist, American Tabloid is just your kinda chronicle. Whether it’s of lives foreswore or foretold is anybody’s guess. In Ellroy’s hands however, it’s also everybody’s blessing.
(less)

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Apr 11, 2011 Rincewind rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

The second best thing in a 24-hour journey when someone else does the driving (flying) is that you get to catch up on books. After having got an Ellroy Itch from reading the blurb of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (only the blurb has an Ellroy connection, not the book), I settled on his Underworld USA trilogy.

After focusing on post-WW2 LA in his LA Quartet series, Ellroy digs into the next tumultuous period in American history - the Kennedy years. Starting a few years before Kennedy gets elected,...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Ian Mapp rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

Through Film, I know who Ellroy is. Through the media, I know the events that forged him. This is the first time that I have read him.

The reason was the good reviews of Bloods a Rover and this is the first part of the trilogy, I thought I would start here.

This has been an exhausting read - 15 days is a long time for me. The style takes an incredible amount of time to get used to - short, sharp sentances - repetition with little description.

The lack of descriptive qualities or narrative like any...more

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Aug 15, 2010 Joe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wish everyone wrote like James Elroy, but I'm glad no one else writes like him, too.

The friend who lent me this book described it as "Harry Potter for conspiracy theories," which -- though I don't completely understand it -- is an apt analogy.

'American Tabloid' follows three rogue law enforcement agents of varying degrees of greed, violence, and ambition, through the muck and mud of the American Political Underbelly: a swamp that includes the Teamsters, the Mob, the FBI, the Kennedys, Cuban...more

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Apr 23, 2010 Tim Niland rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-reads

American Tabloid was James Ellroy's first volume in what would become his "American Underworld" series, an epic trilogy that amounted no nothing less than an alternative history of the Unites States from 1958-1973. The first volume follows the rise of John F. Kennedy from playboy senator through president and finally to martyr. Ellroy splits the narrative from the perspective of two FBI agents, one obsessed with breaking organized crime and the Teamsters union and the other following his own sel...more

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Oct 17, 2009 Krishna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read American Tabloid years ago as a student in Australia. I re-read it recently, largely to re-familiarize myself with the sleazy, murky world of Ellroy's USA Underworld Trilogy, before I tackle his just published 3rd and final installment Blood's A Rover.

Long time readers of Ellroy's books will quickly find out that the USA Underworld books are merely the author painting his hellish world view on a wider canvas; American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand are basically the crime and grime of...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Erik Simon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Merely to say this book is great is useless and redundant, so let me say two things:

1. Don DeLillo, in his novel LIBRA, which Ellroy claims influenced this novel, somewhere writes in that book, "History is the sum total of all the things they're not telling us." This book is that line--it's the sum total of all the things they've not told us about the JFK assassination, and that those things have been novelized cannot be denigrated. We now live in a society wherein the news is entertainment, and...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Dave marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: calibre, fiction

SUMMARY: We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination--in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C. . . . Where the CIA, the Mob, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Cuban political exiles, and various loose cannons conspire in a covert anarchy . . . Where the right drugs, the right amount of cash, the right murder, buys a moment of a man's loyalty . . . Where three renegade law-enforcement officers--a forme...more

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Sep 11, 2011 Daryl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

James Ellroy is to crime fiction what Tolstoy was to Russian literature. He says so himself. I'd never read Ellroy before; this was my first exposure. Loved it. He has moved beyond straight crime fiction here to political intrigue as well. This is an amazing story featuring J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Howard Hughes, and Robert and John F. Kennedy as major players. It's the late '50s/early '60s and we follow various members of the mafia, the FBI, Cuban exiles, and high-ranking political figures...more

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May 29, 2010 F.R. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Re-reading ‘American Tabloid’ convinced me that after the obituary is published and we look back at James Ellroy’s career as a whole, it will probably be the LA crime novels which are seen as his greatest achievement.

Not that there isn’t a lot of excellence in this more “political” tome (for want of a better adjective). Starting in 1958 and leading to the Kennedy assassination, Ellroy gives us three men who play their parts behind the scenes and whose actions lead to that national tragedy. There...more Re-reading ‘American Tabloid’ convinced me that after the obituary is published and we look back at James Ellroy’s career as a whole, it will probably be the LA crime novels which are seen as his greatest achievement.

Not that there isn’t a lot of excellence in this more “political” tome (for want of a better adjective). Starting in 1958 and leading to the Kennedy assassination, Ellroy gives us three men who play their parts behind the scenes and whose actions lead to that national tragedy. There are few modern writers who can capture criminal seediness with such aplomb, and here – just as in the LA crime novels – we get a cacophony of damaged, reprehensible characters whose best instincts are rarely even that good. For the most part it’s a thrilling ride as fictional characters interact with real people, all heading to the conclusion which history tells us to expect. And it is therefore somewhat weird that the last section feels so flat and perfunctory in comparison, just like chess pieces being moved around on a board.

The biggest problem with this book though, is how rabidly anti the Kennedys it is. Now I’m far too young to view either JFK or RFK through anything other than a historical perspective, but clearly Ellroy has strong opinions and is intent on hammering them home. No chapter containing those brothers of Camelot is complete without more of their duplicity and hypocrisy being put on display; no chance to list their character flaws is missed. Obviously Ellroy wants you to understand his perspective, but his hatred is laid on in such thick portions that it begins to feel like you’re being harangued by a belligerent drunk. You’ve heard and understood what he has to say, and now you just wish he’d go away so you can go and have a nice peaceful game of darts.

This is a good novel, but it undoubtedly has flaws. Nevertheless it will not stop me re-reading ‘The Cold Six Thousand’ shortly, before then tackling ‘Bloods A Rover’.(less)

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Apr 15, 2008 Julius rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kennedys- Plus
Debauchery- Plus
Casual Racism- Minus
Conspiracy Theories- Plus
Extreme Violence- Plus
Moral Subtext- Ehhh.

Great book. Ellory is becoming one of my favorites. Basically and interwoven story involving mafia hitman, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, 2 wayward FBI agents, Howard Hughes, and Jimmy Hoffa. Castro fits in there somewhere. It's a quick read, with very few chapters over 10 pages. The action stays consistent throughout.

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Nov 28, 2009 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven't read any Ellroy since I finished L.A. Confidential, and I've forgotten that the experience is akin to taking crystal meth with a Jack Daniels chaser. Short sentences hammer away at you as you relive the pivotal events of 1959-1963 through the twisted lenses of four psychopaths: Pete Bondurant, French-Canadian hit man; Kemper Boyd, smooth-talking Southern attorney with a good tailor; and Ward Littell, an FBI agent and boozehound.

Oh, and the fourth is author James Ellroy.

B, B & L for...more

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Sep 29, 2009 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't decide if James Ellroy is the greatest living American crime writer, or a racist, misogynist, homophobic jerk. I guess both are possible.

His extremely stylistic narrative approach is on display here. Not as extreme as it was in White Jazz, but still. Dig this, feature that, machine-gun sentence fragments. It works if you let it.

Great premise--three warped, damaged men are responsible for pretty much every mishap in the Kennedy administration through a subtle nudge here and a bit of dupli...more

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About James Ellroy

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international best sellers. His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. His novel The Cold Six Thousand was a New York...more

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The Cold Six Thousand (Underworld USA, #2)

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Trivia About American Tabloid

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Quotes from American Tabloid

“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight.
The real Trinity of Camelot was Look Good, Kick Ass, Get Laid. Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He called a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab.
Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame. It's time to dislodge his urn and cast light on a few men who attended his ascent and facilitated his fall.
They were rouge cops and shakedown artist. They were wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American History would not exist as we know it.
It's time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define there time.
Here's to them.” — 8 people liked it

“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception. Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight.
The real Trinity of Camelot was Look Good, Kick Ass, Get Laid. Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He called a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab.
Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame. It's time to dislodge his urn and cast light on a few men who attended his ascent and facilitated his fall.
They were rouge cops and shakedown artists. They were wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American History would not exist as we know it.
It's time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define their time.
Here's to them.” — 2 people liked it

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American Tabloid (Underworld USA #1)

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