Holly’s review of Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood > Likes and Comments
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Novel? I thought it was nonfiction
Agreed with everything you said. I thought it was odd the author seemed to want to paint her as this “pure” young girl who never drank or smoked and surely wasn’t involved in sex when the authors own background story would highly suggest otherwise.
There was just an article in the LA Times about a man who claims to have solved two great murder mysteries - The Black Dahlia, and the Zodiac Killer - and that the infamous murderer in both cases, is the same man. Multiple people concur, including veteran LAPD Homicide cold case detectives, among others. Pretty interesting.
I have to agree with your assessment of Elizabeth Short. The author is trying just a bit too hard to rescue her image, but so far (I've only started reading the book today) there really isn't that much he can do. He wants so much for her not to have been a prostitute, but I really don't think she could have carried on the way she was for long without at least sometimes accepting payment for services rendered. Heck, she'd probably have been less precarious with regards to food and lodging if she'd just wised up and turned pro. But it seems to me her whole thing was to get as much as possible while doing the least possible, sex or otherwise. She seemed to be aaverse to getting any kind of job.
I particularly take issue with the author's ccontention that Short is more like Tom Sawyer, breaking the norms by striking out on her own and seeing the world, and that men who do the same thing are called resourceful and adventurous.
They aren't.
They're usually called straight-up bums.
And Short was not independent or self-reliant at all. Her life in LA has one defining characteristic: dependence on others. Men or women, sexual or platonic, she depended on others to feed and house her and she wasn't above lying to them to get them to do it.
She was just such a sad sack. Pitiable, but not admirable.
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Will
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Aug 26, 2025 10:08PM
Novel? I thought it was nonfiction
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Agreed with everything you said. I thought it was odd the author seemed to want to paint her as this “pure” young girl who never drank or smoked and surely wasn’t involved in sex when the authors own background story would highly suggest otherwise.
There was just an article in the LA Times about a man who claims to have solved two great murder mysteries - The Black Dahlia, and the Zodiac Killer - and that the infamous murderer in both cases, is the same man. Multiple people concur, including veteran LAPD Homicide cold case detectives, among others. Pretty interesting.
I have to agree with your assessment of Elizabeth Short. The author is trying just a bit too hard to rescue her image, but so far (I've only started reading the book today) there really isn't that much he can do. He wants so much for her not to have been a prostitute, but I really don't think she could have carried on the way she was for long without at least sometimes accepting payment for services rendered. Heck, she'd probably have been less precarious with regards to food and lodging if she'd just wised up and turned pro. But it seems to me her whole thing was to get as much as possible while doing the least possible, sex or otherwise. She seemed to be aaverse to getting any kind of job.I particularly take issue with the author's ccontention that Short is more like Tom Sawyer, breaking the norms by striking out on her own and seeing the world, and that men who do the same thing are called resourceful and adventurous.
They aren't.
They're usually called straight-up bums.
And Short was not independent or self-reliant at all. Her life in LA has one defining characteristic: dependence on others. Men or women, sexual or platonic, she depended on others to feed and house her and she wasn't above lying to them to get them to do it.
She was just such a sad sack. Pitiable, but not admirable.
