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"Rhino" Rick Jenson #1
Destination: Morgue!
Dig. The Demon Dog gets down with a new book of scenes from America’s capital of Los Angeles. Fourteen pieces, some fiction, some nonfiction, all true enough to be admissible as state’s evidence, and half of it in print for the first time. And every one of them bearing the James Ellroy brand of mayhem, machismo, and hollow-nose prose.
Here are Mexican featherweights and unsolved-murder vics, crooked cops and a very clean D.A. Here is a profile of Hollywood’s latest celebrity perp-walker, Robert Blake, and three new novellas featuring a demented detective with an obsession with a Hollywood actress. And, oh yes, just maybe the last appearance of Hush-Hush sleaze-monger Danny Getchell. Here’s Ellroy himself, shining a 500-watt Mag light into all the dark places of his life and imagination. Morgue! puts the reader’s attention in a hammerlock and refuses to let go.
Here are Mexican featherweights and unsolved-murder vics, crooked cops and a very clean D.A. Here is a profile of Hollywood’s latest celebrity perp-walker, Robert Blake, and three new novellas featuring a demented detective with an obsession with a Hollywood actress. And, oh yes, just maybe the last appearance of Hush-Hush sleaze-monger Danny Getchell. Here’s Ellroy himself, shining a 500-watt Mag light into all the dark places of his life and imagination. Morgue! puts the reader’s attention in a hammerlock and refuses to let go.
389 pages, Paperback
First published November 6, 2003
36 people are currently reading
500 people want to read
About the author
James Ellroy
137 books4,174 followersLee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A. Confidential (1990).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
May 15, 2018
As Ellroy himself would point out - he's one hell of an acquired taste. That said, if you've never read any of his previous work (like The Black Dahlia or L.A. Confidential) DON'T start with this book.
However, that's not to say it's bad, other than his alliteration going into overdrive to the point of distraction. The first half of the book is comprised of several non-fiction pieces - ranging from boxing, the author's 'unique' / tragic childhood, vexing true crime cases, and (probably my favorite) the trials and tribulations of being the new and under fire Los Angeles County District Attorney.
The latter half is a novella about an idiosyncratic LAPD homicide detective and his relationship (also obsession) with a TV crime-show actress over 20 years and three investigations. Usually the cop would be called a 'loose cannon,' but this time its more the actress(?!). Weird, but entertaining.
However, that's not to say it's bad, other than his alliteration going into overdrive to the point of distraction. The first half of the book is comprised of several non-fiction pieces - ranging from boxing, the author's 'unique' / tragic childhood, vexing true crime cases, and (probably my favorite) the trials and tribulations of being the new and under fire Los Angeles County District Attorney.
The latter half is a novella about an idiosyncratic LAPD homicide detective and his relationship (also obsession) with a TV crime-show actress over 20 years and three investigations. Usually the cop would be called a 'loose cannon,' but this time its more the actress(?!). Weird, but entertaining.
June 20, 2016
There was a time -- say between 1987 and 1992 -- that James Ellroy was numero uno. That was in the period when his "L.A. Quartet" was published: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. I saw it all beginning with White Jazz: Ellroy was trying to break free of the English language.
He started writing this sentence style of subject predicate with optional object -- with little or no variation. He was taking the language back to John Skelton with his alliteration and lack of variation in sentence structure.
The thing is that he didn't lose any of his vitality along the way. Destination: Morgue! is absolutely wild. Its author might be mentally ill, but if so, he's cracking up in an interesting way. The stories obsess about old crimes, especially rapes and murders. There's a whole essay about the home invasion rape/murder of 15-year-old Stephanie Gorman in 1965. Then he piles up fictional riffs along similar themes in the essays and three novelettes in this volume.
In general, the essays are better. The stories, however, are worth reading. I particularly recommend the last tale, "Jungletown Jihad," for Ellroy's take on Arab terrorism in L.A.
BTW, if you're into political correctness, fuggedaboutit!
He started writing this sentence style of subject predicate with optional object -- with little or no variation. He was taking the language back to John Skelton with his alliteration and lack of variation in sentence structure.
The thing is that he didn't lose any of his vitality along the way. Destination: Morgue! is absolutely wild. Its author might be mentally ill, but if so, he's cracking up in an interesting way. The stories obsess about old crimes, especially rapes and murders. There's a whole essay about the home invasion rape/murder of 15-year-old Stephanie Gorman in 1965. Then he piles up fictional riffs along similar themes in the essays and three novelettes in this volume.
In general, the essays are better. The stories, however, are worth reading. I particularly recommend the last tale, "Jungletown Jihad," for Ellroy's take on Arab terrorism in L.A.
BTW, if you're into political correctness, fuggedaboutit!
March 22, 2013
I am an unabashed James Ellroy fan, but I am always a little leery of his short story collections. After reading his novels - The Black Dahlia, the Underground USA Trilogy - I never feel like he'll have enough time in a short story to deliver the type of punch-to-the-gut that he delivers with his novels.
My fears always prove unfounded. Like his other short story collection (Hollywood Nocturnes), Ellroy proves that he's just as gifted with the art of the short story and novella as he is with the multiple book series form. This collection features a trilogy of novellas about an L.A. detective and a cool actress who cross paths and have a tangled destiny with each other.
This collection also features some essays on Ellroy's personal life, which are little gems for fans like me who finish one of his books and wonder "what in the hell makes this guy tick?" These essays cover his childhood - his parents' divorce, his mother's murder, his father's eventual death from disease, and Ellroy's early years as a miscreant youth screwed up by a less-than-ideal upbringing. There is an essay about his obsession with unsolved cases involving young women, and he draws the parallel between these slain girls and his mother, whose murder was never solved either.
All told, this collection is great - a mix of non-fiction that lends an insight into the greatest crime fiction writer of all time, and new short stories that remind us WHY he is the greatest crime fiction writer of all time.
My fears always prove unfounded. Like his other short story collection (Hollywood Nocturnes), Ellroy proves that he's just as gifted with the art of the short story and novella as he is with the multiple book series form. This collection features a trilogy of novellas about an L.A. detective and a cool actress who cross paths and have a tangled destiny with each other.
This collection also features some essays on Ellroy's personal life, which are little gems for fans like me who finish one of his books and wonder "what in the hell makes this guy tick?" These essays cover his childhood - his parents' divorce, his mother's murder, his father's eventual death from disease, and Ellroy's early years as a miscreant youth screwed up by a less-than-ideal upbringing. There is an essay about his obsession with unsolved cases involving young women, and he draws the parallel between these slain girls and his mother, whose murder was never solved either.
All told, this collection is great - a mix of non-fiction that lends an insight into the greatest crime fiction writer of all time, and new short stories that remind us WHY he is the greatest crime fiction writer of all time.
September 28, 2009
this is the worst book ive ever tried to read. read 226 of 389pgs. true crime memories-crime slang,way too much alliteration,silly,sad,bad. what does worst book mean to me ? i couldn t understand much of this book and i couldn t understand james joyce s ULYSSES. to put those two books in the same review is silly,sad,bad. i had a very hard time finishing james jone s SOME CAME RUNNING even though i enjoyed his FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. i used to say that scr was the worst book i had ever read but dm has now taken that place in my reading history.
December 10, 2010
Ok, I'm really sick of writing reviews. There was a time when I corresponded w/ about 1,400 people & I kept track of it all w/ a record-keeping system that became so laboriously bureaucratic that I got sick of it & lost touch w/ almost everyone. Now the same thing's happening w/ bks. Almost everytime I read one I start to have such detailed responses to them that it's becoming a ridiculous chore to try to write a review. It's taking the fun out of reading. SO, keep that in mind as I try to write THIS review.
Ellroy: At 1st I was very impressed by him. The writing had style, there was a brutal realism. Then I started realizing how tediously obsessed he is w/ writing about women being tortured & killed. But, still, it's engrossing stuff in a classic pulp crime fiction way - & it ups the ante for such stuff way beyond what the writers of the 30s thru the 50s cd've ever gotten away w/. & I liked his JFK era trilogy alot as 'conspiracy theory' stuff. AND I was interested in his personal history. SO, I keep coming back.
This is a collection of short nonfiction & crime fiction - much of wch has been previously published in GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly). Am I a GQ kindof a guy? Hardly. So that shd be a warning. In "Where I Get My Weird Shit" he reminisces about his yrs at a predominantly Jewish High School:
"[..] I wanted to promote myself as strictly unique and attract commensurate notice. I was a rebel with self-aggrandizement as cause.
"I pondered the dilemma. I hit on a solution. I joined the American Nazi Party. I debuted my führer act in the West L.A. shtetl.
"It backfired - and worked.
It got me some attention. It got me recognized as a buffoon. I did not subvert the status quo at Fairfax High School. I did not derail the Jewish hegemony. I passed out hate tracts and "Boat Tickets to Africa." I anointed myself as the seed bearer of a new master race. I announced my intent to establish a Fourth Reich in Kosher Kanyon. I defamed jigaboos and dug the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I ragged Martin Luther Coon and hawked copies of "The Nigger's 23rd Psalm." I got sneered at, I got laughed at, I got pushed, I got shoved. I developed a sense of politics as vaudeville and got my ass kicked a few times. I learned how to spin narrative and elicit response. I knew that I didn't hate Negroes or Jews - as long as they comprised a rapt audience. [..]"
Earlier in the same article he writes about liking Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer character & states that he became "a childhood Red basher". He hoarded scandal rags & skin mags. WELL, that explains alot. I've read Spillane's "One Lonely Night". It was one of the worst bks I've ever read. In the 1951 Signet paperback edition I have there's a cover picture of a naked white girl hanging from ropes attached to the ceiling & tied to her wrists. In Spillane's purely propagandistic world, it's the dirty commies who're doing this to her. Somehow, I think it wasn't really a common thing for communists in the US to hang naked women from ceilings as a part of their political activities. Of course, what the fuck did Spillane care? Anti-commie drek SOLD in the 50s & as far as I can tell not only was Spillane a pretty shitty writer he had no political scruples whatsoever.
Ellroy seems to take Spillane to a new 'level'. In "Jungletown Jihad" I assume this 'level' is parody. the section entitled "Homeland Security" begins w/ the purple prose of: "It justified jerry-rigged justice. It mandated mucho mayhem. It took us to torture techniques." As the torturing Vietnam vet cop sends electric charges to the testicles of the person being tortured, the victim screams out slogans like: "Viva PLF! Viva gay marriage! Viva Robert Mapplethorpe and freedom of expression! Viva National Public TV!" Parody or not, this bk came out in 2004 & it has its protagonists torturing an Arab sympathizer terrorist - a 'leftist'. WELL, the character's ridiculous - but as w/ the writings of Spillane in the McCarthy era, I suspect that Ellroy's cops torturing this guy cd've made his readership ACCEPT that the US's torture is acceptable & even FUNNY. NOT.
Later, in Ellroy's other autobiographical story, "My Life as a Creep", Ellroy concludes his story w/:
"I attribute my survival to the seldom-sought presence of Almighty God. Skeptics and inclusionists might scoff at this. They can kiss my fucking ass."
Oh well, I don't "scoff" at this, I downright reject it - & I have no intention of ever kissing Ellroy's ass. The point of all this is that Ellroy really hasn't changed that much from when he was a kid. His stories are a newish variation on the hateful sensationalism he grew up on. The purple prose that started out as the style of his character Danny Getchell, the "Hush-Hush" sleaze-monger, has more of a presence here than usual. His recurring cop protagonist, Detective Jenson, is constantly using racist slang like "coon" but never uses racist slang that I know LA cops of his era used: "cans". A friend of mine's brother was an LA cop & he wd say: "I'm going out to shoot some Cans - AfriCans, MexiCans." Nyuk nyuk, right? Ellroy's continual use of this slang both serves as realism AND as sensationalism. Wch dominates?
The nonfiction covers prominent politicized criminal cases: Gary Graham aka Shaka Sankofa. On p 86 there's a foto of him in "2002". The article ends saying that Graham was executed in "2000". Wch is it? According to WikiPedia:
"Shaka Sankofa (born Gary Lee Graham) (September 5, 1963 – June 22, 2000) was a Texas death-row inmate who was sentenced to death at the age of 18 for the murder of fifty-three year-old husband and father Bobby Grant Lambert in Houston, Texas on May 13, 1981. Despite his claims of innocence, he was executed by lethal injection at 8:49 pm on Thursday, June 22, 2000 in Huntsville, Texas, aged 36."
Ok, no biggie, there's a date error in the picture's caption. Shortly before Sankofa's execution, he was a bit of a cause célebre. Presumably Ellroy's article was written for GQ b/c of this. It ends w/ "Gary Graham might die this year. This piece is my petition to spare his wretched life." Graham was hardly an 'innocent' man in general but, as Ellroy points out, "The County has a one-witness case." He follows this w/ a quote from the bible: "[..] a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness." SO, I think Ellroy tries to be thorough & fair. He didn't like Graham but he thought there was too much room for doubt regarding the murder that he was executed for.
By the by, according to an online source referencing a 1993 African film, "Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."" If I understand correctly, Gary Graham renamed himself to identify as an African warrior attempting to reclaim his past so that he cd move forward into a better future.
On the other hand, Ellroy HATES former SLA supporter/member Sara Jane Olson aka Kathleen Soliah. As he writes regarding the SLA: "They're loony left-wing losers." Conspiracy theorist Mae Brussell thought they were a CIA creation. I always found Brussell to be very well-informed - judging from the little I know of her. I diagree w/ both of them. I think Ellroy's roots in Mickey Spillane are showing.
In the end, I'll keep reading Ellroy - so he's succeeded w/ his high school purpose of learning "how to spin narrative and elicit response". But, ultimately, he's kindof a bore in contrast to the subtle psychology of fellow crime fiction writer Patricia Highsmith, eg. He's not as much of an asshole as Spillane but his subtexts are still seething w/ hate & stupidity. & I reckon readers of GQ are his most enthusiastic fan-base - wch doesn't say much for intelligence.
Ellroy: At 1st I was very impressed by him. The writing had style, there was a brutal realism. Then I started realizing how tediously obsessed he is w/ writing about women being tortured & killed. But, still, it's engrossing stuff in a classic pulp crime fiction way - & it ups the ante for such stuff way beyond what the writers of the 30s thru the 50s cd've ever gotten away w/. & I liked his JFK era trilogy alot as 'conspiracy theory' stuff. AND I was interested in his personal history. SO, I keep coming back.
This is a collection of short nonfiction & crime fiction - much of wch has been previously published in GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly). Am I a GQ kindof a guy? Hardly. So that shd be a warning. In "Where I Get My Weird Shit" he reminisces about his yrs at a predominantly Jewish High School:
"[..] I wanted to promote myself as strictly unique and attract commensurate notice. I was a rebel with self-aggrandizement as cause.
"I pondered the dilemma. I hit on a solution. I joined the American Nazi Party. I debuted my führer act in the West L.A. shtetl.
"It backfired - and worked.
It got me some attention. It got me recognized as a buffoon. I did not subvert the status quo at Fairfax High School. I did not derail the Jewish hegemony. I passed out hate tracts and "Boat Tickets to Africa." I anointed myself as the seed bearer of a new master race. I announced my intent to establish a Fourth Reich in Kosher Kanyon. I defamed jigaboos and dug the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I ragged Martin Luther Coon and hawked copies of "The Nigger's 23rd Psalm." I got sneered at, I got laughed at, I got pushed, I got shoved. I developed a sense of politics as vaudeville and got my ass kicked a few times. I learned how to spin narrative and elicit response. I knew that I didn't hate Negroes or Jews - as long as they comprised a rapt audience. [..]"
Earlier in the same article he writes about liking Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer character & states that he became "a childhood Red basher". He hoarded scandal rags & skin mags. WELL, that explains alot. I've read Spillane's "One Lonely Night". It was one of the worst bks I've ever read. In the 1951 Signet paperback edition I have there's a cover picture of a naked white girl hanging from ropes attached to the ceiling & tied to her wrists. In Spillane's purely propagandistic world, it's the dirty commies who're doing this to her. Somehow, I think it wasn't really a common thing for communists in the US to hang naked women from ceilings as a part of their political activities. Of course, what the fuck did Spillane care? Anti-commie drek SOLD in the 50s & as far as I can tell not only was Spillane a pretty shitty writer he had no political scruples whatsoever.
Ellroy seems to take Spillane to a new 'level'. In "Jungletown Jihad" I assume this 'level' is parody. the section entitled "Homeland Security" begins w/ the purple prose of: "It justified jerry-rigged justice. It mandated mucho mayhem. It took us to torture techniques." As the torturing Vietnam vet cop sends electric charges to the testicles of the person being tortured, the victim screams out slogans like: "Viva PLF! Viva gay marriage! Viva Robert Mapplethorpe and freedom of expression! Viva National Public TV!" Parody or not, this bk came out in 2004 & it has its protagonists torturing an Arab sympathizer terrorist - a 'leftist'. WELL, the character's ridiculous - but as w/ the writings of Spillane in the McCarthy era, I suspect that Ellroy's cops torturing this guy cd've made his readership ACCEPT that the US's torture is acceptable & even FUNNY. NOT.
Later, in Ellroy's other autobiographical story, "My Life as a Creep", Ellroy concludes his story w/:
"I attribute my survival to the seldom-sought presence of Almighty God. Skeptics and inclusionists might scoff at this. They can kiss my fucking ass."
Oh well, I don't "scoff" at this, I downright reject it - & I have no intention of ever kissing Ellroy's ass. The point of all this is that Ellroy really hasn't changed that much from when he was a kid. His stories are a newish variation on the hateful sensationalism he grew up on. The purple prose that started out as the style of his character Danny Getchell, the "Hush-Hush" sleaze-monger, has more of a presence here than usual. His recurring cop protagonist, Detective Jenson, is constantly using racist slang like "coon" but never uses racist slang that I know LA cops of his era used: "cans". A friend of mine's brother was an LA cop & he wd say: "I'm going out to shoot some Cans - AfriCans, MexiCans." Nyuk nyuk, right? Ellroy's continual use of this slang both serves as realism AND as sensationalism. Wch dominates?
The nonfiction covers prominent politicized criminal cases: Gary Graham aka Shaka Sankofa. On p 86 there's a foto of him in "2002". The article ends saying that Graham was executed in "2000". Wch is it? According to WikiPedia:
"Shaka Sankofa (born Gary Lee Graham) (September 5, 1963 – June 22, 2000) was a Texas death-row inmate who was sentenced to death at the age of 18 for the murder of fifty-three year-old husband and father Bobby Grant Lambert in Houston, Texas on May 13, 1981. Despite his claims of innocence, he was executed by lethal injection at 8:49 pm on Thursday, June 22, 2000 in Huntsville, Texas, aged 36."
Ok, no biggie, there's a date error in the picture's caption. Shortly before Sankofa's execution, he was a bit of a cause célebre. Presumably Ellroy's article was written for GQ b/c of this. It ends w/ "Gary Graham might die this year. This piece is my petition to spare his wretched life." Graham was hardly an 'innocent' man in general but, as Ellroy points out, "The County has a one-witness case." He follows this w/ a quote from the bible: "[..] a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness." SO, I think Ellroy tries to be thorough & fair. He didn't like Graham but he thought there was too much room for doubt regarding the murder that he was executed for.
By the by, according to an online source referencing a 1993 African film, "Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."" If I understand correctly, Gary Graham renamed himself to identify as an African warrior attempting to reclaim his past so that he cd move forward into a better future.
On the other hand, Ellroy HATES former SLA supporter/member Sara Jane Olson aka Kathleen Soliah. As he writes regarding the SLA: "They're loony left-wing losers." Conspiracy theorist Mae Brussell thought they were a CIA creation. I always found Brussell to be very well-informed - judging from the little I know of her. I diagree w/ both of them. I think Ellroy's roots in Mickey Spillane are showing.
In the end, I'll keep reading Ellroy - so he's succeeded w/ his high school purpose of learning "how to spin narrative and elicit response". But, ultimately, he's kindof a bore in contrast to the subtle psychology of fellow crime fiction writer Patricia Highsmith, eg. He's not as much of an asshole as Spillane but his subtexts are still seething w/ hate & stupidity. & I reckon readers of GQ are his most enthusiastic fan-base - wch doesn't say much for intelligence.
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December 24, 2022A collection of #nonfiction articles and #novellas from #jamesEllroy #destinationmorgue some quite interesting pieces particularly the unsolved murders others detailing ellroy’s exploits as a young man are less compelling perhaps because I have heard those stories before in his other work/interviews. I do like his classic staccato style and his abundance of awesome alliteration. Chapter 9 is probably my favourite of the shorter pieces. The 3 short stories forming the novella are good fun and outrageous.
October 9, 2014
I'm not yet fully familiar with James Ellroy's most acclaimed work, but so far I'm pondering whether he's actually a better journalist/memoirist than a novelist. This volume contains both autobiographical accounts of the author's youth as a juvenile delinquent in 1960s Los Angeles, almost Tom Wolfe/Hunter Thompson-style reporting on everything from police investigations over professional sports to the history of tabloid magazines... as well as the occasional work of fiction about things like (appropriately enough) a journalist who gets a bit too close to the awful truth.
Ellroy's characteristic love-it-or-hate-it fragmented staccato prose style is in full bloom here, more minimalistic than in the one novel of his I've read yet peppered with a greater amount of stream-of-consciousness rambling. In addition to the two New Journalism pioneers, comparisons to a more thoughtful Charles Bukowski and a less choleric Louis-Ferdinand Céline (without all the ellipses) also come to mind. There's one big difference, though: Ellroy's even less afraid than any of those guys to come across as a rather disagreeable person, probably because he identifies that part of his personality with a phase of his life he's left behind long ago and hence has an easier time keeping at a critical distance.
That might also be why I find the content here superior to Clandestine: Ellroy had by now developed a better ability to keep his overtly stylized manner of writing under control in a specific direction. It probably also helped in this case that the material had to follow real events closely or at least fit into a short and concise space.
Ellroy's characteristic love-it-or-hate-it fragmented staccato prose style is in full bloom here, more minimalistic than in the one novel of his I've read yet peppered with a greater amount of stream-of-consciousness rambling. In addition to the two New Journalism pioneers, comparisons to a more thoughtful Charles Bukowski and a less choleric Louis-Ferdinand Céline (without all the ellipses) also come to mind. There's one big difference, though: Ellroy's even less afraid than any of those guys to come across as a rather disagreeable person, probably because he identifies that part of his personality with a phase of his life he's left behind long ago and hence has an easier time keeping at a critical distance.
That might also be why I find the content here superior to Clandestine: Ellroy had by now developed a better ability to keep his overtly stylized manner of writing under control in a specific direction. It probably also helped in this case that the material had to follow real events closely or at least fit into a short and concise space.
October 24, 2009
The only other Ellroy I had read was "The Black Dahlia," which had an obsessive, strange quality to it that I found quite compelling. This book explains why, in the first half, as Ellroy writes some non-fiction memoirs regarding his mother's own murder, his misadventures as a criminal and wannabe Nazi (to out counter-culture the counter-culture) in his early life in Los Angeles. Ellroy is an unapologetic LA bastard, and that's what makes his prose good.
The second half of the book is 3 short stories with the same characters, taking place between the early 80s and now. The narrator, Rick Jenson, is a semi-crooked cop who routinely steps outside the boundaries of the law. The style is a bit weird, until after the second story it's explained that Jenson writes his memoirs in the style of tabloid headlines. With that explanation, the alliterative repetition gets less cumbersome, and I got into it. Enjoyed thoroughly, will be reading more Ellroy.
The second half of the book is 3 short stories with the same characters, taking place between the early 80s and now. The narrator, Rick Jenson, is a semi-crooked cop who routinely steps outside the boundaries of the law. The style is a bit weird, until after the second story it's explained that Jenson writes his memoirs in the style of tabloid headlines. With that explanation, the alliterative repetition gets less cumbersome, and I got into it. Enjoyed thoroughly, will be reading more Ellroy.
May 6, 2013
Pretty good, and representative, collection from James Ellroy. Eight are non-fiction crime pieces that originally appeared in GQ magazine. Three are fiction, written in his riffing 50's jazz style, and readers will probably judge them based on how they feel about Ellroy personally. Check out "Stephanie", "Grave Doubt", and "My Life As A Creep", standout non-fiction from GQ. Illustrated throughout with terrific photographs.
September 1, 2016
This shouldn't have been my first book by him.. It feels (unlike the first tale in this short story collection) like a collection of throw away tales that would NEVER have been released if it was any other author... Repetitive writing, pointless tales & and all around waste of time..
Don't bother...
Don't bother...
July 4, 2019
Unquestionably some of the worst things Ellroy's ever written. An EP of rejected B sides grafted together into one book. Lot of fun to be had stylistically, but that choice starts to drag 2/3 of the way through this collection.
The novellas suck.
The novellas suck.
January 6, 2008
This thing was a total pile of shit. If you are amused and amorous about all alliteration at all times, this is the book for you. If that lest sentence bugged you, dont even bother.
February 27, 2009
Several splendid sections, soused sourly by several sloppily squelched with all-pervasive and awkward alliteration.
October 11, 2024
You probably won’t like this book.
And, if you do, you probably won’t like yourself for liking it.
But, if you can stomach the racism, homophobia, violence and sexism – if you can see them in the service of a damaged psyche lashing out at everything put before it for admiration – you might see (as I do) that these memoirs and stories constitute a beatitudes of near despair.
The first parts of this one are some of the most powerful work I can remember reading from Ellroy. (And I’ve read most of his work, though I do need to go back to The Black Dahlia and a couple other of his early mature work). In the memoir portions – which come to us through Ellroy’s tabloid-born, jazz-style patter which can seem so contrived (at the same time it strikes me as brilliant) – we get him turning his sour sense of the world on himself.
And it is sour.
Here’s a guy whose mother was murdered in his early adolescence – after she went through a string of guys he describes as low-lifes. As he put it, “My mother’s murder betrothed me to death.”
From there, he found himself mooning over other murder victims, especially Elizabeth Smart, the Black Dahlia. He’s fearlessly upfront about imagining his love for her, conflating her with his mother in an I-know-it’s-Oedipal-dammit confession.
His father is only marginally helpful. A Hollywood hanger-on and gofer, he claims to have all sorts of inside scoop, reporting on the sexual peccadillos of Rita Hayworth and any number of others.
He joins the army, hates it, and fakes a mental breakdown when his father dies. He sets out for a life of petty crime, robbing stores and homes, doing street drugs, and wasting his life.
It’s literature that sort of saves him. He finds crime fiction, and he sees – almost sees – a different way to live.
And, from there, he doesn’t foreswear his old life, he examines it. He refuses the simplicity of an I’ve-been-saved memoir and reports without apology what it was like to grow up without hope in a world warped by the nearness of Hollywood and supposed glamour. The world taught him to hate and to hurt, and he can’t unlearn it.
He can, however, show that it’s possible to strip away some of that glamour and, without owning to supposed decency, manage to keep on living.
He may have been a panty-sniffer and a creep – as he admits straightforwardly – but he’s lived to tell the tale, and that’s a triumph in its way.
I’d heard of that story in general – and I need to read My Dark Places – but this is my first full-on encounter with it. And it’s something.
The second part of this is a series of linked novellas around the characters Rick and Donna. Rick is a cop on the cold case squad. Donna is a Jennifer Aniston-type America’s sweetheart actress. Over the years they sleep together, track down the murderer of a young girl, get in shootouts with Muslim terrorists trying to take down the Oscars, and never make it really work.
In some ways this is Ellroy parodying himself. It sounds like his L.A. and American Trilogy stuff, but it’s even wilder and without the focus of a history of how-we-fucked-up-this-America. There is the twist that we’re seeing a sense of a post-9/11 contemporary America, but that goes only so far. Ellroy doesn’t work as well without the patina of 1950s glamour to coat his view of the world’s ugliness.
What does work, though, is the sense that the nonfiction of Ellroy’s real life blurs with the fiction of Rick with all his homicidal, racist, and sexist impulses.
It’s ugly through and through, but it’s honest. This isn’t a man out to shock the world with horror and hate. It’s a man who’s survived much of that horror and hate himself – one who’s moreover managed to develop a distinctive literary voice – trying his damnedest to describe what it’s like to feel damned.
And, if you do, you probably won’t like yourself for liking it.
But, if you can stomach the racism, homophobia, violence and sexism – if you can see them in the service of a damaged psyche lashing out at everything put before it for admiration – you might see (as I do) that these memoirs and stories constitute a beatitudes of near despair.
The first parts of this one are some of the most powerful work I can remember reading from Ellroy. (And I’ve read most of his work, though I do need to go back to The Black Dahlia and a couple other of his early mature work). In the memoir portions – which come to us through Ellroy’s tabloid-born, jazz-style patter which can seem so contrived (at the same time it strikes me as brilliant) – we get him turning his sour sense of the world on himself.
And it is sour.
Here’s a guy whose mother was murdered in his early adolescence – after she went through a string of guys he describes as low-lifes. As he put it, “My mother’s murder betrothed me to death.”
From there, he found himself mooning over other murder victims, especially Elizabeth Smart, the Black Dahlia. He’s fearlessly upfront about imagining his love for her, conflating her with his mother in an I-know-it’s-Oedipal-dammit confession.
His father is only marginally helpful. A Hollywood hanger-on and gofer, he claims to have all sorts of inside scoop, reporting on the sexual peccadillos of Rita Hayworth and any number of others.
He joins the army, hates it, and fakes a mental breakdown when his father dies. He sets out for a life of petty crime, robbing stores and homes, doing street drugs, and wasting his life.
It’s literature that sort of saves him. He finds crime fiction, and he sees – almost sees – a different way to live.
And, from there, he doesn’t foreswear his old life, he examines it. He refuses the simplicity of an I’ve-been-saved memoir and reports without apology what it was like to grow up without hope in a world warped by the nearness of Hollywood and supposed glamour. The world taught him to hate and to hurt, and he can’t unlearn it.
He can, however, show that it’s possible to strip away some of that glamour and, without owning to supposed decency, manage to keep on living.
He may have been a panty-sniffer and a creep – as he admits straightforwardly – but he’s lived to tell the tale, and that’s a triumph in its way.
I’d heard of that story in general – and I need to read My Dark Places – but this is my first full-on encounter with it. And it’s something.
The second part of this is a series of linked novellas around the characters Rick and Donna. Rick is a cop on the cold case squad. Donna is a Jennifer Aniston-type America’s sweetheart actress. Over the years they sleep together, track down the murderer of a young girl, get in shootouts with Muslim terrorists trying to take down the Oscars, and never make it really work.
In some ways this is Ellroy parodying himself. It sounds like his L.A. and American Trilogy stuff, but it’s even wilder and without the focus of a history of how-we-fucked-up-this-America. There is the twist that we’re seeing a sense of a post-9/11 contemporary America, but that goes only so far. Ellroy doesn’t work as well without the patina of 1950s glamour to coat his view of the world’s ugliness.
What does work, though, is the sense that the nonfiction of Ellroy’s real life blurs with the fiction of Rick with all his homicidal, racist, and sexist impulses.
It’s ugly through and through, but it’s honest. This isn’t a man out to shock the world with horror and hate. It’s a man who’s survived much of that horror and hate himself – one who’s moreover managed to develop a distinctive literary voice – trying his damnedest to describe what it’s like to feel damned.
October 21, 2021
Compilación mutilada del libro original de James Ellroy.
El original posée relatos y ensayos de no ficción, y un apartado de tres pequeñas novelas cortas.
Este libro solo posée una de las novelas cortas, y algunos ensayos y relatos de no ficción publicados en otro libro de Ellroy, Crime Wave.
El por qué de esta arbitraria compilación, no lo sé.
Aún así, es un libro mucho más que entretenido.
Las vivencias, narradas en primera persona y de primera mano, del joven Ellroy son sumamente impresionantes.
El resto de los ensayos son contextuales a sucesos importantes de EE.UU (Clinton y Lewinski, O.J Simpson, conductores de programas, etc.), y aunque no son de gran interés para un lector extranjero, sirven para comprender por dónde va la opinion de Ellroy sobre la realidad que retrata en sus novelas.
Gracias, james Ellroy, y la editorial, por este híbrido de libro que, más allá de ser un travesticidio, entretiene como pocos.
El original posée relatos y ensayos de no ficción, y un apartado de tres pequeñas novelas cortas.
Este libro solo posée una de las novelas cortas, y algunos ensayos y relatos de no ficción publicados en otro libro de Ellroy, Crime Wave.
El por qué de esta arbitraria compilación, no lo sé.
Aún así, es un libro mucho más que entretenido.
Las vivencias, narradas en primera persona y de primera mano, del joven Ellroy son sumamente impresionantes.
El resto de los ensayos son contextuales a sucesos importantes de EE.UU (Clinton y Lewinski, O.J Simpson, conductores de programas, etc.), y aunque no son de gran interés para un lector extranjero, sirven para comprender por dónde va la opinion de Ellroy sobre la realidad que retrata en sus novelas.
Gracias, james Ellroy, y la editorial, por este híbrido de libro que, más allá de ser un travesticidio, entretiene como pocos.
November 16, 2021
Picked this up at the library the other day. I much prefer his novels to short pieces, but on the whole I enjoyed this. "Balls to the Wall," which opens the collection, was poetic but way too long. I Loved "Where I Get My Weird Shit," though I already knew much of it from "My Dark Places" and other work. Oh, the picture of the young Ellroy. Creeeeeeepy. man. The true-crime section was interesting. The short story/n novella section I rather enjoyed, (I'v always liked the way he mixes real-life people within his fiction) but not like the full-length work. Hot-Prowl Rape-O was my favorite, but hey, cut the alliteration. I realize this is Hush-Hush style, but it's distracting. I want more Donna Donohue!
March 17, 2018
This book - a mixed collection of autobiographical scenes, butted up against a collection of ‘might have beens’ culled from actual cold cases in the LA area - is enjoyable for the most part, but the alliteration of the last three novellas - Hollywood Fuckpad, Hot Prowl Rape-O and Jungletown Jihad- was just a bit TOO much for me. I lost the plot towards the end; I found my eyes skidding over paragraphs, and in do doing, missed a couple of vital clues.
Having said that, I love the zip of Ellroy’s writings, and I’m still in awe of his Underworld USA trilogy.
So. Maybe not the best book to read in bed last thing. More than good, but almost great.
Having said that, I love the zip of Ellroy’s writings, and I’m still in awe of his Underworld USA trilogy.
So. Maybe not the best book to read in bed last thing. More than good, but almost great.
July 22, 2022
One of the worst books I've read in a long, long time and this is coming from someone who was a fan of "The Black Dahlia" & "L.A. Confidential".
He's always had a unique writing style but the alliterative doggerel he drops into these short stories goes beyond just distracting. Even if his new muse in "Rhino" Rick Jenson wasn't an asshole bigot I'd hate him for his pattern of narration.
I'd write more but I don't really feel like wasting my breath on something I abhorred so much. I have a few other Ellroy novels on the shelf unread and they might just stay that way for a while after this.
He's always had a unique writing style but the alliterative doggerel he drops into these short stories goes beyond just distracting. Even if his new muse in "Rhino" Rick Jenson wasn't an asshole bigot I'd hate him for his pattern of narration.
I'd write more but I don't really feel like wasting my breath on something I abhorred so much. I have a few other Ellroy novels on the shelf unread and they might just stay that way for a while after this.
May 27, 2024
Twelve short story works from Ellroy, where the second half is made up of three original novellas. Not essential reading material, it's more for completists and fans of Ellroy. It's a relative quick read, but Ellroy is still all very much there: violent, crude, fast-paced, intense and lyrical. Eight of these are non-fiction crime reportage / essays that Ellroy wrote for GQ magazine. "Where I Get My Weird Shit" is the highlight of the collection, it's the perfect synthesis of all that is Ellroy and probably the must-read work in the collection. "Stephanie" also stood out to me: a very interesting case and well written.
December 21, 2018
Amazing how you can absolutely love some of an authors work (LA Quartet, My Dark Places) and find some of their other work abysmal. The Rick Jenson sections read like a parody of the racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/fascistic Mike Hammer stories by Spillane, and, while I'm all for separating the art from the artist, I feel like the autobiographical sections of the book hint that Ellroy himself might just be as racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/fascistic as the characters he clearly finds joy in writing.
October 22, 2017
Ellroy is not for everyone, even the dedicated noir crime aficionados. His machine-gun delivery, constant references, alliterative excess, and other aspects often makes his stories wearying. Yet, I love them. Surely old-timey Angelenos love them. This collection of essays and novellas is very autobiographical, and somewhat repetitive, but will be required reading for anyone who undertakes literary criticism of Ellroy. Some will marvel at his darker side.
June 28, 2018
This is my first Ellroy book and its somewhat difficult for me to get started. Its rather stylized written in a kind of beatnik prose and its not really telling a story as it is more about Ellroy. Skipped to the Robert Blake chapter and decided to start again later.
April 4, 2024
I'm a James Ellroy fan, but i think i'm over his books now, i just couldn't finish this. Love his early work and his fascinating back story is adds an awul lot to his work. But other reviewers have already said, read the LA Noir books, that's where its all at.
April 18, 2025
Destination: Morgue! is everything you would expect from a James Ellroy collection. Hardboiled tales of rogue policemen and a few essays about Ellroy's fascination with crime and Hollywood. This one is strictly for the fans.
May 30, 2020
Tales, some true some not, from the master himself. This wasn't as enjoyable as his novels, but it was a fun read.
June 29, 2022
Read in 2005. A collection of 12 short works.
June 16, 2025
When I first read L.A. Confidential when I was 17 I knew I had stumbled upon maybe not the "greatest" writer of crime fiction but definitely the most fascinating. Over the years, I've read almost everything else he's published, most of it quite enjoyable.
Destination: Morgue! is like a re-do in my opinion. The first half comprises previously published non fiction pieces, with the latter three connected novellas, it's very similar to the format of Crimewave (which unexpectedly, I hated). Where Ellroy shines is in his shocking honesty and obsessive depravity and that is on full display in this collection. The glorification of a mythological LAPD, the disdain for celebrities with their dark secrets and the almighty powerful WOMEN that serve as the center of his universe. Not his most well known work, but I definitely think you could call this one of his sleeper hits and a must for fans of his earlier novels. Skip Crimewave and opt for this collection instead.
Destination: Morgue! is like a re-do in my opinion. The first half comprises previously published non fiction pieces, with the latter three connected novellas, it's very similar to the format of Crimewave (which unexpectedly, I hated). Where Ellroy shines is in his shocking honesty and obsessive depravity and that is on full display in this collection. The glorification of a mythological LAPD, the disdain for celebrities with their dark secrets and the almighty powerful WOMEN that serve as the center of his universe. Not his most well known work, but I definitely think you could call this one of his sleeper hits and a must for fans of his earlier novels. Skip Crimewave and opt for this collection instead.
November 5, 2024
Ellroy's non-fiction is spectacularly better than his fiction. I wish this volume was made entirely of his articles and reporting.
September 15, 2013
A smattering of true crime cold cases revisited from the author’s perspective, essays of a personal and professional nature, and a collection of three novellas linked by a cop’s prolonged infatuation with a Hollywood starlet. James Ellroy’s DESTONATION MORGUE offers plenty of diversity for the reader but be warned, the style is an acquired taste. Readers will either love or loathe Ellroy’s writing. Luckily, I loved it.
There are consistent themes within DESTINATION MORGUE; sex, crime, and those who love both. Ellroy does - his lust for both the bed-sheets and bloodied pages of crime fact and fiction is paramount. Readers of his non-fiction MY DARK PLACES will be familiar with some of the essays, for those new; it’s an interesting insight into what made Ellroy the man he is today.
DESTINATION MORGUE was nearly a five star read with only the final novella hampering the overall enjoyment; I felt like Ellory went too big with the Hollywood starlet’s ability to fight crime alongside her long time cop admirer. That said, I dug the dilapidated destination drudging up drugs and debortuary designed by a dude who dwelled in the dugout of crime throughout his youth and young adulthood (excuse my poor attempt to mimic the style).
4.5 stars.
There are consistent themes within DESTINATION MORGUE; sex, crime, and those who love both. Ellroy does - his lust for both the bed-sheets and bloodied pages of crime fact and fiction is paramount. Readers of his non-fiction MY DARK PLACES will be familiar with some of the essays, for those new; it’s an interesting insight into what made Ellroy the man he is today.
DESTINATION MORGUE was nearly a five star read with only the final novella hampering the overall enjoyment; I felt like Ellory went too big with the Hollywood starlet’s ability to fight crime alongside her long time cop admirer. That said, I dug the dilapidated destination drudging up drugs and debortuary designed by a dude who dwelled in the dugout of crime throughout his youth and young adulthood (excuse my poor attempt to mimic the style).
4.5 stars.
February 29, 2012
Destination: Morgue! collects a bunch of non-fiction pieces Ellroy wrote over the past decade (mostly for GQ) and several novellas that were never published. I was apprehensive going in, since I know this has a reputation as being one of the worst Ellroy books out there. For the first half, I didn't believe that at all — the bulk of the essays were quite compelling. Ellroy lets his obsessions guide his writing, and he's had a crazy life.
But while he manages to jam elements from his essays into the novellas in the second half, that doesn't really make them good. In fact, it's Ellroy at his absolute worse - non-stop alliteration, and the sex-violence nexus (as he puts it) cranked to the max. I realize there's a meta element here, which sounds good on paper, but it's just obnoxious. Having read other Ellroy story collections, I really think he needs space to really stretch and let his stories sprawl. Books in the L.A. Quartet or the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy work because they're doorstoppers. When he tries to fit a story into 70 pages or so, it's just awful. I'll hang onto this just for the essays, I think. Otherwise, blah.
But while he manages to jam elements from his essays into the novellas in the second half, that doesn't really make them good. In fact, it's Ellroy at his absolute worse - non-stop alliteration, and the sex-violence nexus (as he puts it) cranked to the max. I realize there's a meta element here, which sounds good on paper, but it's just obnoxious. Having read other Ellroy story collections, I really think he needs space to really stretch and let his stories sprawl. Books in the L.A. Quartet or the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy work because they're doorstoppers. When he tries to fit a story into 70 pages or so, it's just awful. I'll hang onto this just for the essays, I think. Otherwise, blah.
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