JAMES ELLROY:
SUMMARY:Ellroy's memoir centered around his reopening of the investigation of his mother's unsolved murder. The book evolved from an article Ellroy wrote for GQ Magazine about the experience of viewing his mother's homicide file.
PUBLISHER'S TEASER:"Jean Ellroy was murdered in 1958. Her body was dumped on a roadway in a run-down L.A. suburb. The killer was never found. The case was closed. It was a sordid back-page homicide that nobody remembered.
"Except her son.
"James Ellroy was ten years old when his mother died. His bereavement was complex and ambiguous. He grew up obsessed with murdered women and crime. His life spun hellishly out of control. He ran from the ghost of Jean Ellroy. He became a writer of radically provocative and best-selling crime novels. He tried to reclaim his mother through fiction. it didn't work. he quit running and wrote this memoir.
"My Dark Places is Jean Ellroy's and James Ellroy's story — from 1958 to all points past and up to this moment. It is the story of a brilliant homicide detective named Bill Stoner, and of the investigation he and James Ellroy undertook to find Jean Ellroy's killer. My Dark Places is unflinching autobiography and vivid reportage. It is no less than a treatise on 38 years of American murder. It is James Ellroy's journey into and through his most forbidding memories."
—© Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
POINTS:The novel was first published by Scorpion Press in the U.K. as a limited edition. Century followed in the U.K. with a hardcover release (ISBN: 0-7126-7588-4) in 1996. The American edition came third from Knopf (ISBN: 0-679-44185-9) and totals 354 pages (according to the uncorrected proof, the book was originally projected to run 320 pages). The Knopf edition appeared on Nov. 12, 1996. According to the rather rare, uncorrected proof edition of the book, the Knopf edition was orginally planned to incorporate 14 photos which did not appear in the final version of the book. A sheet signed by Ellroy (actually, he hastily initialed the pages) was bound into each copy of the (reportedly) 75,000 run of the first edition (other sources state the Knopf first edition ran 50,000 copies). Chosen as a Time Magazine Book of the Year. Ellroy dedicated his novel to his wife, Helen Knode.
INTERVIEWS:• Ellroy Discusses His Memoir (Real)
• Guardian Interview
• Michigan Daily Interview
• Jamcaster Interview
• Time Magazine Q&A
• Salon Interview
• Daily Bruin Interview
• Bruin #2
• Random House Q&A
• My Dark Places Excerpt
• Books On Tape Sample (Real)
• Beatrice Interview
• Worldguide Interview
• New Standard
REVIEWS:• New York Times Review
• Western Ontario Gazette Review
• BookPage Review
• Between The Lines Review
Order the book My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir
Order the U.K. trade paperback
Order the book on tape My Dark Places
