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Hillikerin kirous: Elämäni naiset
Vuosi on 1958. James Ellroy on 10-vuotias ja vihainen äidilleen. Hän toivoo että äiti kuolisi. Kolme kuukautta myöhemmin äiti murhataan. Syyllisyys äidin kuolemasta, Hillikerin kirous, jäytää ja jalostuu iän myötä yhä pakkomielteisemmäksi. Kun Ellroy alkaa kirjoittaa rikoskirjallisuuden huipulle nousevia romaanejaan, hän etsii yhä uudelleen nuoren naisen murhaajaa.
Murha erittää pimeyttään myös Ellroyn rakkaussuhteisiin, jotka paitsi valaisevat myös tuhoavat. Hillikerin kirouson suorasukainen ja peittelemätön omaelämäkerta, jossa Ellroy tutustuttaa lukijan rakkauksiinsa ja itseensä. Sivuilta on luettavissa naismanian lisäksi työnarkomaniaa ja totaalinen loppuun palaminen. Ellroy johdattaa maailmaansa yhtä maanisesti ja maanitellen kuin legendaarisimpien rikostensa pariin.
Los Angeles -kvartetilla ja Amerikan alamaailma -trilogialla tajunnat räjäyttäneeltä Ellroylta on suomennettu 13 kirjaa. Hän kävi keväällä 2010 Helsingissä markkinoimassa uusinta teostaan Levoton veri. Hillikerin kirous julkaistaan suomeksi yhtä aikaa alkuteoksen kanssa.
Murha erittää pimeyttään myös Ellroyn rakkaussuhteisiin, jotka paitsi valaisevat myös tuhoavat. Hillikerin kirouson suorasukainen ja peittelemätön omaelämäkerta, jossa Ellroy tutustuttaa lukijan rakkauksiinsa ja itseensä. Sivuilta on luettavissa naismanian lisäksi työnarkomaniaa ja totaalinen loppuun palaminen. Ellroy johdattaa maailmaansa yhtä maanisesti ja maanitellen kuin legendaarisimpien rikostensa pariin.
Los Angeles -kvartetilla ja Amerikan alamaailma -trilogialla tajunnat räjäyttäneeltä Ellroylta on suomennettu 13 kirjaa. Hän kävi keväällä 2010 Helsingissä markkinoimassa uusinta teostaan Levoton veri. Hillikerin kirous julkaistaan suomeksi yhtä aikaa alkuteoksen kanssa.
238 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2006
41 people are currently reading
674 people want to read
About the author
James Ellroy
137 books4,176 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 141 reviews
September 9, 2010
1. once again i'll post the greatest picture in the history of all pictures.
myself. ellroy. manny.
2. the general busyness of my life these days doesn't allow much time to write book reports -- a shame because it's a terrific way to blow off steam. instead i drink. at kowalski's recommendation, i moved from bourbon on the rocks to gin & club soda. and it was a good move, a more appropriate summer drink. but i'm still wrecking my liver, prematurely aging, and require a quick mid-day nap to fight off the hangover i powered through at 6 am so as to give the dog a good hike. so forgive a lack of rigor or relevance. i'm out of practice, hungover, busy, and, of course, i begin with a picture, an apology, and a digression -- not too good, eh?
3. after having worked in a bookstore for 6 years i'm sick to death of author readings. the affected inflection of most public readers is the equivalent of a testicular hangnail. and i have trouble following stories read aloud. i prefer the solitariness and subjectivity of the reading experience. but my friend tyson puts together this thing over at largo for select authors to cut through the bullshit and talk about stuff they really wanna talk about. and i wouldn't miss ellroy for the world. nobody gives public speak like ellroy.
i crashed the green room and caught ellroy outside the john trying to work up a precautionary pee before his reading. an excerpt from our conversation:
me: aren't you ever worried about litigation with writing such crazy shit about real life figures?
ellroy: who're you talking about?
me: um... the kennedys?
ellroy: ha. if the kennedys sued everyone who slandered or libeled them they'd be in court 24 hrs a day. and then they couldn't be out on the street raping and killing women.
amaaaaazing.
for some reason tyson had this woman called laura kightlinger do a comedy set before ellroy went on -- she was mid-act talking about spitting on this guy's dick while giving him a handjob and ellroy rushes the stage: "get off! i don't want to hear this crap before i read!"
ellroy screams into the wings: "tyson, get her out of here! what is this shit?"
kightlinger was booted off stage.
it was incredibly tense and awkward and NOT planned and just totally terrific.
the reading opened with a woman standing beside a bust of beethoven speaking these words:
"Good evening peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps. Here is James Ellroy, the demon dog, the foul owl with the death growl, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick. He's the author of 18 books, masterpieces all; they precede all his future masterpieces. These books will leave you reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed. These are books for the whole fuckin' family, if the name of your family is the Manson Family."
4. but the hilliker curse: dare i say i find it unnecessary? many many times has ellroy declared much of my dark places disingenuous. many many times have i thought: "i don't care." ellroy's additions addenda palimpsests corrections etc may be more honest and in line with what he is feeling now (or even, perhaps, how he was feeling then), but that's irrelevant to the book reading experience, irrelevant to the book as a freestanding work of art. now for those who found james frey to be worse than criminal, for those who feel that memoir is more a collection of fact than a work of art, you might welcome a my dark places redux. i say 'fuck all that' -- to flip into donald powellian hyperbole, my dark places is an anguished howl into the abyss, a swirling maelstrom of dementia plunging the darkest depths of a plagued soul. ahem. anyway. it really is all that. and it's glorious. and 'fact' or 'fiction' doesn't change a damn thing.
the more reasonable ellroy still writes as if a demondog was gnawing its way up into his asshole -- but he writes more with the clarity and conviction of the recently dried-out alcoholic than with the bravado of a drunk-on-rotgut carny barker.
and i like my ellroy how i like my coffee.
5. the bullet points are for jon bruenning.
smooches.
myself. ellroy. manny.
2. the general busyness of my life these days doesn't allow much time to write book reports -- a shame because it's a terrific way to blow off steam. instead i drink. at kowalski's recommendation, i moved from bourbon on the rocks to gin & club soda. and it was a good move, a more appropriate summer drink. but i'm still wrecking my liver, prematurely aging, and require a quick mid-day nap to fight off the hangover i powered through at 6 am so as to give the dog a good hike. so forgive a lack of rigor or relevance. i'm out of practice, hungover, busy, and, of course, i begin with a picture, an apology, and a digression -- not too good, eh?
3. after having worked in a bookstore for 6 years i'm sick to death of author readings. the affected inflection of most public readers is the equivalent of a testicular hangnail. and i have trouble following stories read aloud. i prefer the solitariness and subjectivity of the reading experience. but my friend tyson puts together this thing over at largo for select authors to cut through the bullshit and talk about stuff they really wanna talk about. and i wouldn't miss ellroy for the world. nobody gives public speak like ellroy.
i crashed the green room and caught ellroy outside the john trying to work up a precautionary pee before his reading. an excerpt from our conversation:
me: aren't you ever worried about litigation with writing such crazy shit about real life figures?
ellroy: who're you talking about?
me: um... the kennedys?
ellroy: ha. if the kennedys sued everyone who slandered or libeled them they'd be in court 24 hrs a day. and then they couldn't be out on the street raping and killing women.
amaaaaazing.
for some reason tyson had this woman called laura kightlinger do a comedy set before ellroy went on -- she was mid-act talking about spitting on this guy's dick while giving him a handjob and ellroy rushes the stage: "get off! i don't want to hear this crap before i read!"
ellroy screams into the wings: "tyson, get her out of here! what is this shit?"
kightlinger was booted off stage.
it was incredibly tense and awkward and NOT planned and just totally terrific.
the reading opened with a woman standing beside a bust of beethoven speaking these words:
"Good evening peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps. Here is James Ellroy, the demon dog, the foul owl with the death growl, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick. He's the author of 18 books, masterpieces all; they precede all his future masterpieces. These books will leave you reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed. These are books for the whole fuckin' family, if the name of your family is the Manson Family."
4. but the hilliker curse: dare i say i find it unnecessary? many many times has ellroy declared much of my dark places disingenuous. many many times have i thought: "i don't care." ellroy's additions addenda palimpsests corrections etc may be more honest and in line with what he is feeling now (or even, perhaps, how he was feeling then), but that's irrelevant to the book reading experience, irrelevant to the book as a freestanding work of art. now for those who found james frey to be worse than criminal, for those who feel that memoir is more a collection of fact than a work of art, you might welcome a my dark places redux. i say 'fuck all that' -- to flip into donald powellian hyperbole, my dark places is an anguished howl into the abyss, a swirling maelstrom of dementia plunging the darkest depths of a plagued soul. ahem. anyway. it really is all that. and it's glorious. and 'fact' or 'fiction' doesn't change a damn thing.
the more reasonable ellroy still writes as if a demondog was gnawing its way up into his asshole -- but he writes more with the clarity and conviction of the recently dried-out alcoholic than with the bravado of a drunk-on-rotgut carny barker.
and i like my ellroy how i like my coffee.
5. the bullet points are for jon bruenning.
smooches.
April 18, 2011
Ellroy, I love your books, but I’m getting a little tired of hearing about your masturbation fantasies. *sigh*
OK, let’s take it from the top. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, the biography of James Ellroy:
James Ellroy was 10 in 1958 when his mother was raped and murdered. The case was never solved. His parents had been divorced, and he went to live with his father, a lazy two-bit hustler in L.A. Young James was socially awkward, had an overheated imagination and a child’s belief that he may have caused his mother’s death by wishing her dead shortly before she was actually killed.
With unacknowledged feelings for his mother shoved into the back of his mind, James’ intense obsessive personality and story telling nature along with a complete lack of parental guidance from his father led him to live inside his own head. He was obsessed with women and concocted elaborate fantasies about anyone he’d see. He loved crime stories and created scenarios where he was the hero who would ’save’ a woman. His father died. He become a drunk and drug user, sometimes homeless, who peeped women, and broke into houses to engage in petty theft and panty sniffing.
Eventually, a full-blown mental meltdown and physical collapse scared Ellroy off booze and drugs. He worked menial jobs at golf courses and started writing. He got published. He grew as a writer and wrote The Black Dahlia. He admits that he shamelessly exploited his mother’s death for book publicity. That book became part of something larger, his L.A. Quartet of crime novels. (Also containing L.A. Confidential.) He started rewriting U.S. history as an untold crime story in American Tabloid. He married a woman named Helen Knode who encouraged him to finally acknowledge his issues with his mother.
Ellroy hired a retired L.A. homicide detective and the two examined his mother’s murder. He tied that into his own history and wrote it up as My Dark Places, claiming that he was finally owning up to his debt to his mother. He and his wife moved to Kansas City just as the critical success of the film version of L.A. Confidential, and the raves for American Tabloid and My Dark Places brought him to the peak of his commercial and artistic success to date.
Ellroy claimed he’d finally put his past to bed, he was moving on to bigger and better novels, he loved his wife, he loved his new home in K.C. and he’d finally achieved the peace and stability he’d always needed.
Bullshit.
I was here in K.C. during that period right after the release of My Dark Places and got to meet him a couple of times at some events. I even got my own little Q&A session with him for about fifteen minutes once. He gave every indication of being a guy who had survived a pretty ugly past, and was ready to move on. And apparently, it was all lies. Actually, that’s not right. Ellroy wasn’t lying exactly. It’s just that he’s obsessive about needing a narrative. He’s a writer. He needed a story to fit the very public figure he’d become. So he gave us one and sold himself on it, too.
What Ellroy reveals in The Hilliker Curse is that he’s never gotten over his whole mad obsession with finding Her. The woman he’s been fantasizing about since his mother got killed. He’s been looking for her since he was a pimply faced teen running wild in L.A., fueled by booze, drugs and crime fantasies. It eventually made him a great writer. It’s also made for a pretty fucked up life. It’s led him to countless obsessions, two divorces, adultery, and another full-blown mental crack-up in the early 2000s.
Ellroy’s self-admitted problem is that he often prefers to sit in a dark room fantasizing about Her, rather than dealing with real life with an actual woman. He knows he’s messed up. He claims he’s still on friendly terms with his last ex-wife and another woman that he had an affair with, and that they help keep him somewhat honest. But now he says that he has finally found The One. His long epic journey has at last led him the woman he’s always been seeking.
If I didn’t know about Ellroy, if I hadn’t met the man and listened to his previous story first-hand and bought it completely, then I’d probably believe him.
The key thing to remember is that he is an admitted opportunist and relentless self-promoter. When Black Dahlia released, he claimed that it was his final tribute to his mother. But when My Dark Places released, Ellroy said that what he’d said earlier was bullshit, and that he’d finally honestly examined his relationship to her and dealt with it there. And here we are 14 years later, and once again, Ellroy is telling us that wasn’t true either. Here’s the REAL story. And he’s so damn good that you can almost believe it. Again, I don’t think he’s lying. I think he’s narrating.
As an Ellroy fan, I enjoyed the book. It’s written in his trademark high-octane, ADD style. His behind the scenes account of his career explains why The Cold Six Thousand was unsatisfying, and how his breakdown and financial problems led to a decade of non-fiction, short stories and his involvement with bad movies. He appears to be back on track with the release of Blood’s A Rover last year and I’d like to believe that this new woman will finally lead him to happiness and lots of new novels.
But I feel like Charlie Brown running full tilt at the football just before Lucy yanks it away. I’m not falling for it again. I’m a fan of James Ellroy, I’m not his friend. I root for him to do well and want great books from him. In exchange, I’ll buy his work and spread the gospel. I’d like for him to be happy, but after reading two autobiographies by him, I’m doubting it’s possible.
Maybe he’s doomed to just sit in dark rooms and love his women via rich fantasies. If he needs to justify and rewrite his history to live with himself, that’s fine. We all do it to some extent. I just wish he’d use his talent in that area to write some new books instead of trying to convince us that this time he really, really, REALLY is telling us the true story.
4 stars for a terrifically well-written book and getting some idea of what happened during the last ten years his career. 2 stars for expecting us to believe him this time. So I’ll average it out and call it 3 stars.
OK, let’s take it from the top. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, the biography of James Ellroy:
James Ellroy was 10 in 1958 when his mother was raped and murdered. The case was never solved. His parents had been divorced, and he went to live with his father, a lazy two-bit hustler in L.A. Young James was socially awkward, had an overheated imagination and a child’s belief that he may have caused his mother’s death by wishing her dead shortly before she was actually killed.
With unacknowledged feelings for his mother shoved into the back of his mind, James’ intense obsessive personality and story telling nature along with a complete lack of parental guidance from his father led him to live inside his own head. He was obsessed with women and concocted elaborate fantasies about anyone he’d see. He loved crime stories and created scenarios where he was the hero who would ’save’ a woman. His father died. He become a drunk and drug user, sometimes homeless, who peeped women, and broke into houses to engage in petty theft and panty sniffing.
Eventually, a full-blown mental meltdown and physical collapse scared Ellroy off booze and drugs. He worked menial jobs at golf courses and started writing. He got published. He grew as a writer and wrote The Black Dahlia. He admits that he shamelessly exploited his mother’s death for book publicity. That book became part of something larger, his L.A. Quartet of crime novels. (Also containing L.A. Confidential.) He started rewriting U.S. history as an untold crime story in American Tabloid. He married a woman named Helen Knode who encouraged him to finally acknowledge his issues with his mother.
Ellroy hired a retired L.A. homicide detective and the two examined his mother’s murder. He tied that into his own history and wrote it up as My Dark Places, claiming that he was finally owning up to his debt to his mother. He and his wife moved to Kansas City just as the critical success of the film version of L.A. Confidential, and the raves for American Tabloid and My Dark Places brought him to the peak of his commercial and artistic success to date.
Ellroy claimed he’d finally put his past to bed, he was moving on to bigger and better novels, he loved his wife, he loved his new home in K.C. and he’d finally achieved the peace and stability he’d always needed.
Bullshit.
I was here in K.C. during that period right after the release of My Dark Places and got to meet him a couple of times at some events. I even got my own little Q&A session with him for about fifteen minutes once. He gave every indication of being a guy who had survived a pretty ugly past, and was ready to move on. And apparently, it was all lies. Actually, that’s not right. Ellroy wasn’t lying exactly. It’s just that he’s obsessive about needing a narrative. He’s a writer. He needed a story to fit the very public figure he’d become. So he gave us one and sold himself on it, too.
What Ellroy reveals in The Hilliker Curse is that he’s never gotten over his whole mad obsession with finding Her. The woman he’s been fantasizing about since his mother got killed. He’s been looking for her since he was a pimply faced teen running wild in L.A., fueled by booze, drugs and crime fantasies. It eventually made him a great writer. It’s also made for a pretty fucked up life. It’s led him to countless obsessions, two divorces, adultery, and another full-blown mental crack-up in the early 2000s.
Ellroy’s self-admitted problem is that he often prefers to sit in a dark room fantasizing about Her, rather than dealing with real life with an actual woman. He knows he’s messed up. He claims he’s still on friendly terms with his last ex-wife and another woman that he had an affair with, and that they help keep him somewhat honest. But now he says that he has finally found The One. His long epic journey has at last led him the woman he’s always been seeking.
If I didn’t know about Ellroy, if I hadn’t met the man and listened to his previous story first-hand and bought it completely, then I’d probably believe him.
The key thing to remember is that he is an admitted opportunist and relentless self-promoter. When Black Dahlia released, he claimed that it was his final tribute to his mother. But when My Dark Places released, Ellroy said that what he’d said earlier was bullshit, and that he’d finally honestly examined his relationship to her and dealt with it there. And here we are 14 years later, and once again, Ellroy is telling us that wasn’t true either. Here’s the REAL story. And he’s so damn good that you can almost believe it. Again, I don’t think he’s lying. I think he’s narrating.
As an Ellroy fan, I enjoyed the book. It’s written in his trademark high-octane, ADD style. His behind the scenes account of his career explains why The Cold Six Thousand was unsatisfying, and how his breakdown and financial problems led to a decade of non-fiction, short stories and his involvement with bad movies. He appears to be back on track with the release of Blood’s A Rover last year and I’d like to believe that this new woman will finally lead him to happiness and lots of new novels.
But I feel like Charlie Brown running full tilt at the football just before Lucy yanks it away. I’m not falling for it again. I’m a fan of James Ellroy, I’m not his friend. I root for him to do well and want great books from him. In exchange, I’ll buy his work and spread the gospel. I’d like for him to be happy, but after reading two autobiographies by him, I’m doubting it’s possible.
Maybe he’s doomed to just sit in dark rooms and love his women via rich fantasies. If he needs to justify and rewrite his history to live with himself, that’s fine. We all do it to some extent. I just wish he’d use his talent in that area to write some new books instead of trying to convince us that this time he really, really, REALLY is telling us the true story.
4 stars for a terrifically well-written book and getting some idea of what happened during the last ten years his career. 2 stars for expecting us to believe him this time. So I’ll average it out and call it 3 stars.
October 14, 2010
James Ellroy’s The Hilliker Curse crossbreeds the author’s harsh, weathered style with confessional self-loathing and fragile redemption. I visualize him in a tiny cell whispering the text through a screen to a priest.
If you’ve read Ellroy, (and if you haven’t read Ellroy don’t start with this one because you won’t get most of the literary and personal history references) especially My Dark Places, you might over the first ten pages think he’s cashing in with a quick and easy retread of his sordid past. Yes, his mom died when he was young, he likes classical music, and he broke into unattainable girls’ houses. Darth Vader is also Luke’s father. So what? A little further into the book Ellroy’s purpose, to “write his way to the truth”, becomes clear. The Hilliker Curse is memoir as therapy. He’s going to drag himself through the pus and feculence of his relationship history and hope he comes out healthier on the other side.
Facets of Ellroy’s personality that might make fans or potential readers uncomfortable are on full display. He admires Ronald Reagan, believes in God, and includes the time his wife’s family heard him jacking off upstairs. Ellroy owns his manipulative skills. He dares readers, as he dares women, to leave him at the same time he’s trying to draw them in. The reader and woman are loosely analogous, but while the former is an outlet for his obsessive and maniacal literary discipline the latter are saviors and redeemers. While Ellroy is most comfortable in dark rooms listening to Beethoven, he’s yearning for “Her’, the woman who will take his hand and lead him to salvation. As a child he reads, in a book about witchcraft and curses, the phrase “Your interior world will give you what you want and what you need to survive” and spends the rest of his life reconciling that approach to living with his loneliness and the outside world. He submerses into full-on mental illness while concurrently gaining a nearly unparalleled meld of literary praise and devoted readership. He’s loaded. But the questions of whether or not Ellroy will ever be calm, sleep consistently, and socially function are still open. I wish the man well but I wouldn’t bet on a linear progression to mental health. I doubt he would, either. I started The Hilliker Curse shrugging my shoulders as to the purpose behind the short book’s existence. After I finished (this morning at 3AM, couldn’t sleep myself) I think I get why this book is important to Ellroy. He’s the one who has to live with himself, when no one else is around, the bookstore crowds gone, the flotsam of his own dramatized history floating through the room. Maybe The Hilliker Curse helped him find peace. I felt tired but satisfied reading the last page. I can’t imagine how he felt writing it.
If you’ve read Ellroy, (and if you haven’t read Ellroy don’t start with this one because you won’t get most of the literary and personal history references) especially My Dark Places, you might over the first ten pages think he’s cashing in with a quick and easy retread of his sordid past. Yes, his mom died when he was young, he likes classical music, and he broke into unattainable girls’ houses. Darth Vader is also Luke’s father. So what? A little further into the book Ellroy’s purpose, to “write his way to the truth”, becomes clear. The Hilliker Curse is memoir as therapy. He’s going to drag himself through the pus and feculence of his relationship history and hope he comes out healthier on the other side.
Facets of Ellroy’s personality that might make fans or potential readers uncomfortable are on full display. He admires Ronald Reagan, believes in God, and includes the time his wife’s family heard him jacking off upstairs. Ellroy owns his manipulative skills. He dares readers, as he dares women, to leave him at the same time he’s trying to draw them in. The reader and woman are loosely analogous, but while the former is an outlet for his obsessive and maniacal literary discipline the latter are saviors and redeemers. While Ellroy is most comfortable in dark rooms listening to Beethoven, he’s yearning for “Her’, the woman who will take his hand and lead him to salvation. As a child he reads, in a book about witchcraft and curses, the phrase “Your interior world will give you what you want and what you need to survive” and spends the rest of his life reconciling that approach to living with his loneliness and the outside world. He submerses into full-on mental illness while concurrently gaining a nearly unparalleled meld of literary praise and devoted readership. He’s loaded. But the questions of whether or not Ellroy will ever be calm, sleep consistently, and socially function are still open. I wish the man well but I wouldn’t bet on a linear progression to mental health. I doubt he would, either. I started The Hilliker Curse shrugging my shoulders as to the purpose behind the short book’s existence. After I finished (this morning at 3AM, couldn’t sleep myself) I think I get why this book is important to Ellroy. He’s the one who has to live with himself, when no one else is around, the bookstore crowds gone, the flotsam of his own dramatized history floating through the room. Maybe The Hilliker Curse helped him find peace. I felt tired but satisfied reading the last page. I can’t imagine how he felt writing it.
December 14, 2016
"The word MORE summarized my private agenda. It was sexual compulsion fueled by a terror of human contact and the forfeit of mental control. I could brood, peep, stalk, think and self-narrate. I could not act."
- James Ellroy, The Hilliker Curse
Probably 3.5 stars. It is funky, narcissistic, bizarre, transgressive, beautiful and brutal. It is Oedipus chasing the memory of his dead mother in the faces and windows of random women. It isn't a book I'd recommend to my wife or my mother, but it was fascinating and really did carry a certain amount of redemption and hope. Ellroy is one of the handful of living writers I actually give a damn about meeting some day. I'd certainly not want my daughter or wife or mother to meet him, however. Many writers who I adore I have no drive or motivation to meet. None. Ellroy is an artist I want to road trip with.
His voice, his openness both resonate strongly with me. I really think Ellroy is one of the handful of genre writers (King, le Carré, etc) that will be read in 300+ years. So, I guess this book will be a bit of a help for future PhD writers in further dissecting Ellroy's novels. He is both a dark room and an open book. He captures something about the 20th century and himself in every book he writes and seems to leave blood, sweat, and semen on every page.
There is something beautiful about the scar that is left when a scab is picked away. Some of the lines from this very exhibitionist memoir hit me hard and left a mark:
1. "The absence of a narrative line left me weightless. I didn't know what it meant then. I'll ascribe meaning now."
2. "I always get what I want. It comes slow or fast and always costs a great deal."
3. "My always-present self-absorption veered to vacancy."
4. "Opportunists ruthlessly cling to emergent imagery and people."
5. "I was having it both ways. I was mending fences I intended to jump."
Anyway, I've written more tonight than I wanted or intended.
- James Ellroy, The Hilliker Curse
Probably 3.5 stars. It is funky, narcissistic, bizarre, transgressive, beautiful and brutal. It is Oedipus chasing the memory of his dead mother in the faces and windows of random women. It isn't a book I'd recommend to my wife or my mother, but it was fascinating and really did carry a certain amount of redemption and hope. Ellroy is one of the handful of living writers I actually give a damn about meeting some day. I'd certainly not want my daughter or wife or mother to meet him, however. Many writers who I adore I have no drive or motivation to meet. None. Ellroy is an artist I want to road trip with.
His voice, his openness both resonate strongly with me. I really think Ellroy is one of the handful of genre writers (King, le Carré, etc) that will be read in 300+ years. So, I guess this book will be a bit of a help for future PhD writers in further dissecting Ellroy's novels. He is both a dark room and an open book. He captures something about the 20th century and himself in every book he writes and seems to leave blood, sweat, and semen on every page.
There is something beautiful about the scar that is left when a scab is picked away. Some of the lines from this very exhibitionist memoir hit me hard and left a mark:
1. "The absence of a narrative line left me weightless. I didn't know what it meant then. I'll ascribe meaning now."
2. "I always get what I want. It comes slow or fast and always costs a great deal."
3. "My always-present self-absorption veered to vacancy."
4. "Opportunists ruthlessly cling to emergent imagery and people."
5. "I was having it both ways. I was mending fences I intended to jump."
Anyway, I've written more tonight than I wanted or intended.
January 16, 2012
This novel The Hilliker curse has alot to do with his association and his obsession with women.. One clear assumption from reading his words is he loves to brood and a bit too much. He's a one of a kind character, recently I watched an interview of his on video here and here it was outrageous. This gave me the need to start reading from this gifted writer, the Black Dahlia is the only novel I have read of his to date and have many of his novels on the shelf who's spines need breaking.
Since his mother's murder in his youth he has been trying to understand women and sometimes in the most unconventional ways.
I wonder if when he was nine years old the incident with the 17 or 18 German immigrant babysitter had a more dark effect on his character.
His marriage to Helen tamed his one nighters and obsession with women. He writes at length of his happiness with her and i did hope for it to last, as it seemed to really contribute to his successful flood of novels. Due to what he calls the Hilliker Curse ot didn't and he meet Joan and divorced. He had two divorces and finally settled with Erika who was married. It seems she's the one, a he closes the book attesting to this. Thank god, he's had a ruff ride and needs to quite brooding. Ellroy seems a man of unique character and presence and a gifted genius in writing. I have not read enough of his novels to be quoted on stating of his genius but sense it.
He writes with humour and gives you a snippet into an Ellrovian life.
This video gives you a taster of the one and only Ellroy.
All hail James Ellroy a Legend.
He talks of his Beethovian mood swings and general love of Beethoven
When he talks of his teenager years he mentions this.
"I taped pictures of Beethoven over my bed and pondered our genius. He composed his greatest music for his 'Immortal Beloved.'Her identity remained as mysterious as The Other for me. Beethoven understood my deep loneliness and sorrow. His deafness inspired visionary thoughts unknown to mortal men. My deafness was voluntary. Beethoven dug that. I often played the adagio of the Hammerklavier Sonata before I went peeping. Beethoven approved more than condemned the practise."
"My dad died in '65. I got kicked out of high school and psych- discharged from three months in the army. I held down minimum- wage jobs and flopped in dive hotels and parks. I smoke weed and scored uppers from dubious physicians. I shoplifted and full time fantasied. I kept a bust of Beethoven stashed in a bush at Burns Park. I did lightweight jolts in the L.A County jail system. I was too thin and was developing a chronic cough.
Booze and dope regulated my fantasy life. The theme had only intensified. I remained consumed by women. It was pushing me toward insanity and death."
"I masturbated myself bloody. I brain-screened faces for stern beauty and probity. The dope drizzled put of my system. I drank myself comatose and woke up in random shrubbery and jails. I never questioned the validity of my mission. I never questioned my sanity or the religious mess of my quest. I did not subscribe to the notion of the American 1960s as the sine qua non of all behaviours in extremis. I was tracing the arc of the Hilliker Curse. I wanted One Woman or All Women to be her. The horribly looming price of insanity or death in no way deterred me."
He talks about his first book.
"My new hero was a womanising cop. He had predatory instincts and my seeker's rationale."
" The sex- fiend cop became a hardback trilogy. The feminist poet was supplanted by a brainy call girl and the cop's resurrected ex- wife. The woman-with-a-cello book stayed in print. Ditto the my-mom-got-whacked-and-I'm-in-flight epic."
"I wanted an unnamed woman. It was the inextinguishable flame or my life. I wanted to write a specific woman's story. I knew her name: Elizabeth Short.
The Black Dahlia."
"American Tabloid was the private nightmare of public policy. The infrastructure was power grab in place of love as redemption. Women veered through the book in subordinate roles. This was emblematic of the early '60s. I wanted to write an all- new kind of novel and incinerate my ties in L.A. The former was laudable, the latter was not. L.A. made me. Jean Hilliker was killed there. I met Helen Knode a block from where I was born. The book was almost finished. Helen kept saying, you're working too hard."
Other than the video in the links above there are these also
JAMES ELLROY INTERVIEW WITH MIRANDA SAWYER (BBC 2 THE CULTURE SHOW 2009)
James Ellroy speaks
Read
September 27, 2015Página 50. Con esto no puedo. No me interesa en absoluto
Read
July 14, 2023A memoir published in 2010. Featuring impressively frank details of Ellroy’s romantic relationships, marriages, adulterous affairs, divorces and home wrecking. Plenty of stuff here for armchair psychology enthusiasts to analyse. I have read ellroy’s work extensively and watched plenty of interviews but there were a number of stories in this book that I had not seen before. His flamboyance and outrageous style often entertains and there were a few laugh out loud moments. Self-awareness abides but it can only take one so far. It’s also interesting to note that the book ends with such hope and positivity about his relationship with Erika but I understand that they have separated and he is currently close with one of his ex-wives, perhaps an updated and expanded edition of this book is required. The demon dog is a fascinating complex romantic.
November 22, 2010
What a weird, mesmerizing headlong kiss-and-tell memoir. I'm a huge Ellroy fan, there was no way I was going to miss this one. I just wish he'd slow up a little. I feel as if I'm on a high-speed bus tour of Paris, and someone's pointing out the major sights as we whiz by them. Would like to get out and walk around a bit, buy a kir and sit at a sidewalk cafe, drink in the scene.
But fascinating to read what was going on in this man's life as he was writing the books. Although sometimes the voice of the older Ellroy dismissing the younger Ellroy makes me imagine the older OLDER Ellroy giving this one the same crit.
I'm fascinated nevertheless in this quite self-consciously shaped self-exposure, the turning of a very human self into high mythology. Worth reading just for the private fantasies about Anne Sophie Von Otter, the mezzo-soprano!!
********************
What a strange book. I don't even know what to think about it. More of a poem than a memoir. The sound of it, the tone. I'm glad he found the great love of his life but it doesn't seem to have alleviated the obsessionality, just helped him find a focus for it which I hope might deepen into a more human type of love. Jeesh, I don't wish that kind of grinding obession on anyone--though the books it fuels are pretty fantastic.
so glad I read it, but... whew.
But fascinating to read what was going on in this man's life as he was writing the books. Although sometimes the voice of the older Ellroy dismissing the younger Ellroy makes me imagine the older OLDER Ellroy giving this one the same crit.
I'm fascinated nevertheless in this quite self-consciously shaped self-exposure, the turning of a very human self into high mythology. Worth reading just for the private fantasies about Anne Sophie Von Otter, the mezzo-soprano!!
********************
What a strange book. I don't even know what to think about it. More of a poem than a memoir. The sound of it, the tone. I'm glad he found the great love of his life but it doesn't seem to have alleviated the obsessionality, just helped him find a focus for it which I hope might deepen into a more human type of love. Jeesh, I don't wish that kind of grinding obession on anyone--though the books it fuels are pretty fantastic.
so glad I read it, but... whew.
January 29, 2015
I really liked this book, despite really, intensely disliking Ellroy. It would have won a fourth star, but the concluding few chapters were supremely irritating. As a summary, he seems to abandon his exploration of self, and instead try and convince his readers (and himself?) that this latest woman is the ONE. Sigh. Maybe she is. I doubt it. Either way, shame.
June 21, 2022
James Ellroy es un escritor de novela negra muy famoso, con títulos como LA Confidencial, La Dalia Negra, se distingue por un suceso que aconteció en su niñez, que lo marcaría de por vida y que ha sido parte de sus trabajos literarios, incluyendo un libro que habla enteramente del caso.
El suceso fue, a los 10 años, su madre le preguntó con quien le gustaría irse a vivir con ella o con su padre, él eligió al padre, ella al oír la respuesta le dio una bofetada. El niño herido musitó una maldicion y deseó verla muerta, tres meses después su deseo se convirtió en vaticinio, la madre apareció asesinada.
Este libro en concreto habla de las memorias del escritor, el suceso se menciona solo de pasada, se enfoca sobre todo en las secuelas que dejó.
James siente fijación por un tipo de de mujer, alta, cabellos con reflejos rojizos, como imaginarán estos eran rasgos de su madre.
La narración no sigue un hilo, ni trata de ordenar las cosas para nosotros los lectores más bien nos invita a entrar a un mundo interno, donde convive la necesidad de amar, con la necesidad de contar, y con un ego necesario para ser escritor, que le permite siempre tener un punto de vista para todo, y ser obsesivo con la idea de conocer mujeres, para hablar por teléfono con ellas, para amarlas, odiarlas o simplemente observarlas.
Algo que me dejó claro este libro es la diferencia en cómo ama uno y otro género, por un lado las mujeres tenemos una lista de deseos y cualidades, cuando conocemos a un hombre que nos gusta, nos enamoramos y después tratamos de que se amolde a nuestra lista.
Los hombres en cambio ya traen una mujer definida y concreta en su mente tanto física como mentalmente, y van comparando a todas las mujeres con ella, hasta que encuentran a aquella que cumple exactamente con el perfil.
El libro es interesante y es oscuro, muy oscuro pero al final destella una luz, que alumbra y calienta un poco el alma.
El suceso fue, a los 10 años, su madre le preguntó con quien le gustaría irse a vivir con ella o con su padre, él eligió al padre, ella al oír la respuesta le dio una bofetada. El niño herido musitó una maldicion y deseó verla muerta, tres meses después su deseo se convirtió en vaticinio, la madre apareció asesinada.
Este libro en concreto habla de las memorias del escritor, el suceso se menciona solo de pasada, se enfoca sobre todo en las secuelas que dejó.
James siente fijación por un tipo de de mujer, alta, cabellos con reflejos rojizos, como imaginarán estos eran rasgos de su madre.
La narración no sigue un hilo, ni trata de ordenar las cosas para nosotros los lectores más bien nos invita a entrar a un mundo interno, donde convive la necesidad de amar, con la necesidad de contar, y con un ego necesario para ser escritor, que le permite siempre tener un punto de vista para todo, y ser obsesivo con la idea de conocer mujeres, para hablar por teléfono con ellas, para amarlas, odiarlas o simplemente observarlas.
Algo que me dejó claro este libro es la diferencia en cómo ama uno y otro género, por un lado las mujeres tenemos una lista de deseos y cualidades, cuando conocemos a un hombre que nos gusta, nos enamoramos y después tratamos de que se amolde a nuestra lista.
Los hombres en cambio ya traen una mujer definida y concreta en su mente tanto física como mentalmente, y van comparando a todas las mujeres con ella, hasta que encuentran a aquella que cumple exactamente con el perfil.
El libro es interesante y es oscuro, muy oscuro pero al final destella una luz, que alumbra y calienta un poco el alma.
October 29, 2025
This is a painfully honest look by a famed mystery writer of his sexual obsessions and relationships with women. As James Ellroy says toward the end of The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women: A Memoir, "I always get what I want. I more often than not suffocate or discard what I want the most. It cuts me loose to yearn and profitably repeat the pattern."
Ellroy was always an emotionally needy person. No wonder: His mother, Jean Hilliker, divorced his father and then, two months later, was murdered. That left her 10-year-old son in a strange position. That position he calls the Hilliker Curse.
Most men are nowhere near as honest as Ellroy is in this book. He may have been something of an emotional Cookie Monster, but at least he was no predator.
Ellroy was always an emotionally needy person. No wonder: His mother, Jean Hilliker, divorced his father and then, two months later, was murdered. That left her 10-year-old son in a strange position. That position he calls the Hilliker Curse.
Most men are nowhere near as honest as Ellroy is in this book. He may have been something of an emotional Cookie Monster, but at least he was no predator.
September 13, 2021
Everything you would expect from Ellroy, and some people will not like that. As a memoir it is guilty of navel-gazing, it's obsessive, it's egoistic. It's also brave, stark, enthralling and, as always, stylish. Has another author ever laid bare their weaknesses and flaws in such minute and compulsive detail?
June 21, 2025
This entertained me at times I will not deny that-- but I ultimately don't think it needed to exist?? Don't really get writing just a recap of his relationships and divorces? read the true crime memoir about ellroy's mother instead!!
April 6, 2015
Hard on the heels of my reading of My Dark Places comes this, a second exploration of the role of women in author James Ellroy's life.
You probably won't want to read it if you're sick of jacking-off-and-peeping stories. Because - though they're not as explicitly described as elsewhere - they're here. That and darkened-room fantasising. The short book reeks of control; of others, of self, and the lack thereof.
Ideally, this should be read in concert with My Dark Places. That book explains the importance of the murder of Ellroy's mother, and its effect on his life. The Hilliker Curse moves past the mechanics of the death and into how his relationships with women have played out over the years. True, his mother is looming, forever, but this installment looks at how her shadow touches her son's interactions with women.
(Protip: they generally don't end well.)
The author is candid, though. He recounts destructions wrought by his own shitty behaviour with unflinching honesty. There's a sense of regret and of fear - particularly when discussing panic attacks while on tour. It's a portrait - much more than in My Dark Places - of collapse, where that book is a recitation of focus and construction. This is a guy with money, success, and a collapsing life. Yet he never plays the sympathy card, and his masochism is never presented as admirable. It just is.
One part which interested was the role Beethoven plays in Ellroy's life. It could be vanity, equating oneself with one of the Greatest Artists (and Arseholes) Who Ever Lived, but I think here it's a whole kindred-spirit thing. Beethoven had his 'Immortal Beloved' and Ellroy has his fantasy women: all separate, yet all curiously interchangeable. I like the image of the two men being arseholes together, a brotherhood of bastards.
I wonder if Ellroy's planning another volume of autobiographical work? This one was a pleasant surprise, given the gruelling nature of My Dark Places, and it'd be interesting to see whether the LOVE LOVE LOVE notes of the newish relationship at the end of the book hold out, or whether it's back to dark rooms and self-abuse.
Either way, it'd be entertaining and horrifying in equal measure.
You probably won't want to read it if you're sick of jacking-off-and-peeping stories. Because - though they're not as explicitly described as elsewhere - they're here. That and darkened-room fantasising. The short book reeks of control; of others, of self, and the lack thereof.
Ideally, this should be read in concert with My Dark Places. That book explains the importance of the murder of Ellroy's mother, and its effect on his life. The Hilliker Curse moves past the mechanics of the death and into how his relationships with women have played out over the years. True, his mother is looming, forever, but this installment looks at how her shadow touches her son's interactions with women.
(Protip: they generally don't end well.)
The author is candid, though. He recounts destructions wrought by his own shitty behaviour with unflinching honesty. There's a sense of regret and of fear - particularly when discussing panic attacks while on tour. It's a portrait - much more than in My Dark Places - of collapse, where that book is a recitation of focus and construction. This is a guy with money, success, and a collapsing life. Yet he never plays the sympathy card, and his masochism is never presented as admirable. It just is.
One part which interested was the role Beethoven plays in Ellroy's life. It could be vanity, equating oneself with one of the Greatest Artists (and Arseholes) Who Ever Lived, but I think here it's a whole kindred-spirit thing. Beethoven had his 'Immortal Beloved' and Ellroy has his fantasy women: all separate, yet all curiously interchangeable. I like the image of the two men being arseholes together, a brotherhood of bastards.
I wonder if Ellroy's planning another volume of autobiographical work? This one was a pleasant surprise, given the gruelling nature of My Dark Places, and it'd be interesting to see whether the LOVE LOVE LOVE notes of the newish relationship at the end of the book hold out, or whether it's back to dark rooms and self-abuse.
Either way, it'd be entertaining and horrifying in equal measure.
July 8, 2011
I have decided that I enjoy Ellroy's non-fiction even more than I love his fiction. I have read his fiction for years and enjoyed it and certainly known that Ellroy peppers his fiction with real people who have made an impression on him through the years. I have to say I love most everything about him--he's a walking contradiction (something I understand well)--right wing, vulgar, self aware, cynical, romantic, too crazy to be sane and too sane to be crazy. And a man who writes about the murder of women fairly often but truly loves females.
This book is probably one of my favorites--as always Ellroy is brutally honest and truly poetic --though not the traditional "romantic", his love and adoration of the women in his orbit is truly something to behold--No matter how things end, he manages to take away something beautiful and lasting from each relationship. He honors each woman for the changes she has made in him and vice versa---and miracle of miracles he sounds pretty happy by the end of the book---not something I think of with Ellroy--he's had many triumphs but his life seems so mired in sadness sometimes (despite his lack of open sentimentality about it) that I always wish him a happy ending. I love that he manages to still love and hold sacred the things he loved about certain women in his life without the relationship continuing--unlike so many people who casually "love" and then deny the effect that person has had on their life. It's something I have always done but only once had given in return (and that is why you are my best friend, Bob...<3. So I know it takes strength of character and a true and deep affection and respect.
The prose is snappy and full of jive as always and obviously the book was a quick read despite it's depth--great for fans of Ellroy---you big freaks, you! :)
This book is probably one of my favorites--as always Ellroy is brutally honest and truly poetic --though not the traditional "romantic", his love and adoration of the women in his orbit is truly something to behold--No matter how things end, he manages to take away something beautiful and lasting from each relationship. He honors each woman for the changes she has made in him and vice versa---and miracle of miracles he sounds pretty happy by the end of the book---not something I think of with Ellroy--he's had many triumphs but his life seems so mired in sadness sometimes (despite his lack of open sentimentality about it) that I always wish him a happy ending. I love that he manages to still love and hold sacred the things he loved about certain women in his life without the relationship continuing--unlike so many people who casually "love" and then deny the effect that person has had on their life. It's something I have always done but only once had given in return (and that is why you are my best friend, Bob...<3. So I know it takes strength of character and a true and deep affection and respect.
The prose is snappy and full of jive as always and obviously the book was a quick read despite it's depth--great for fans of Ellroy---you big freaks, you! :)
January 10, 2018
LA CONFESIÓN DE UN PERRO (QUIZÁS NO TAN) RABIOSO
Con permiso de Chandler y de algún otro ilustre, debo afirmar que a mí no me gusta la novela negra, realmente quién me gusta es Ellroy. Y Philip Kerr, pero éste en otro nivel distinto, de quién espero otras cosas diferentes cuando abordo sus textos. Aclarado este punto, reafirmado el que Ellroy me gusta como autor, independientemente de que escriba novela de género, me asomo A la caza de la mujer, texto confesional y hasta psicoanalítico que puede resultar, a quién desconozca la personalidad de su autor, un libro insoportable, incluso obra de un enfermo ególatra, pero que para los seguidores de Ellroy resultará una confesión magnética, visceral y entretenidísima –esto, tal vez, es su principal virtud… aunque cabe preguntarse ¿cuándo Ellroy no ha resultado entretenido?-.
Ellroy lleva arrastrando en su literatura un drama personal y una marca de estilo impuesta por las circunstancias. El drama personal se remonta a su infancia, al asesinato todavía por resolver de su madre Jean, que luego trataría de exorcizar hasta cierto punto en La Dalia Negra, sin conseguirlo, a la vista de este A la caza de la mujer. Porque la confesión del libro es que Ellroy, en sus relaciones con las mujeres, siempre ha buscado reencontrarse con su madre, y reconciliarse con ella. Reconciliarse, en efecto, porque desde hace más de cincuenta años aquella muerte atormenta al autor, por encima de que se desconozca el nombre del asesino. Divorciados, su madre le preguntó a un James Ellroy, que contaba con diez años, si deseaba mantenerse de su lado en el proceso de despedazamiento familiar, y James le dijo que deseaba estar con su padre. Su toma de posición fue recompensada con una bofetada y el pequeño James, humillado y ofendido, deseó que su madre muriera de inmediato. En efecto, a los tres meses, era asesinada.
Ellroy se culpó, y en el libro que nos ocupa lo sigue manteniendo, que la muerte de la madre era culpa suya. Establece un conducto directo entre aquel deseo y el asesinato, y esa idea se ha fijado en su pensamiento. Hubo el intento de La Dalia Negra, y del sobresaliente Mis rincones oscuros, pero el problema nunca fue superado. De esa manera, la historia desemboca en A la caza de la mujer, el trauma marca su vida y sus relaciones con el otro sexo. A ello se añade la marca impuesta por las circunstancias a la que me refería anteriormente: si quería publicar debía acortar sus libros, y de ahí su estilo directo y telegráfico, dinámico, una puñada en la cara del lector, a menudo desbordado por la velocidad de lo narrado. Su confesión en A la caza de la mujer, aunque no sea novela y el que no necesitaría ese traje, se ajusta firmemente a ese estilo hard-boiled, resultando el texto absorbente, vehemente, un carrusel que agarra de las solapas al lector y lo zarandea como a la puerta de un barucho de mala muerte en un callejón de Los Ángeles.
Pero, por eso mismo, porque Ellroy es Ellroy, engreído e insoportable, egocéntrico y enfant terrible, agent provocateur, y todos los términos en francés que puedan ocurrírsenos, por ello, por todo ello, habrá quién no aguante dos páginas de esta historia y la abandone aborrecido del recital de narcisismo desplegado. Estamos hablando de la truculenta vida del autor, por ejemplo, de la Trilogía Americana, dos de los tres libros que la integran, tal vez, los mejores que se hayan escrito en el género. Y eso ya merecería la atención de sus lectores.
Y si bien es cierto que alguien se preguntará lo que le pueden importar los traumas de este hombre, así como sus conquistas, su relación con el alcohol y las drogas, y sus historias con las mujeres, en el fondo impera una tremenda verdad: su madre fue asesinada realmente y eso condicionó, ha condicionado su vida y su escritura, su literatura, situando estas memorias -si así queremos denominarlas- muy por encima de otros recuerdos y confesiones de autores más pendientes de mostrar con quienes han comido, se han codeado, las fiestas a las que han ido, todo ello embadurnado en complejas y autoindulgentes visiones e interpretaciones literarias. Este, no es el caso.
No deja de sorprenderme una circunstancia: con lo que me gusta Ellroy no he incluido en esta bitácora nunca una crítica de ningún libro suyo. Ni de Amérca, ni de Seis de los grandes, ni de El asesino de la carretera, títulos todos ellos imprescindibles para el género y para la literatura. Eso me recuerda que en breve debo hacerlo, que tengo una deuda contraída con los ratos de excelente diversión y entretenimiento que me han proporcionado, anclados sólidamente en una gran calidad rezumante. Cuando el primer libro de Ellroy que reseño aquí es A la caza de la mujer, eso resulta significativo. Incluso el título lo es, que lo podría confundirse con una novela sobre un asesino en serie. Y en cierto modo la literatura de Ellroy, toda esa literatura, es así, la de un asesino en serie. Sus párrafos no son sino una pistola cargada, a veces.
Otras veces, ya es un calibre del 45 humeante que nos ha dado entre los ojos.
Es necesario poner algo de distancia entre un texto confesional y biográfico y sus novelas. Algunas de sus legendarias novelas negras necesariamente deben situarse por encima de este libro, pero sólo por eso. Un texto obsesivo, sociópata, atormentado y abrumador para un libro desmesurado y desbordado como su autor. Una confesión relampagueante.
Con permiso de Chandler y de algún otro ilustre, debo afirmar que a mí no me gusta la novela negra, realmente quién me gusta es Ellroy. Y Philip Kerr, pero éste en otro nivel distinto, de quién espero otras cosas diferentes cuando abordo sus textos. Aclarado este punto, reafirmado el que Ellroy me gusta como autor, independientemente de que escriba novela de género, me asomo A la caza de la mujer, texto confesional y hasta psicoanalítico que puede resultar, a quién desconozca la personalidad de su autor, un libro insoportable, incluso obra de un enfermo ególatra, pero que para los seguidores de Ellroy resultará una confesión magnética, visceral y entretenidísima –esto, tal vez, es su principal virtud… aunque cabe preguntarse ¿cuándo Ellroy no ha resultado entretenido?-.
Ellroy lleva arrastrando en su literatura un drama personal y una marca de estilo impuesta por las circunstancias. El drama personal se remonta a su infancia, al asesinato todavía por resolver de su madre Jean, que luego trataría de exorcizar hasta cierto punto en La Dalia Negra, sin conseguirlo, a la vista de este A la caza de la mujer. Porque la confesión del libro es que Ellroy, en sus relaciones con las mujeres, siempre ha buscado reencontrarse con su madre, y reconciliarse con ella. Reconciliarse, en efecto, porque desde hace más de cincuenta años aquella muerte atormenta al autor, por encima de que se desconozca el nombre del asesino. Divorciados, su madre le preguntó a un James Ellroy, que contaba con diez años, si deseaba mantenerse de su lado en el proceso de despedazamiento familiar, y James le dijo que deseaba estar con su padre. Su toma de posición fue recompensada con una bofetada y el pequeño James, humillado y ofendido, deseó que su madre muriera de inmediato. En efecto, a los tres meses, era asesinada.
Ellroy se culpó, y en el libro que nos ocupa lo sigue manteniendo, que la muerte de la madre era culpa suya. Establece un conducto directo entre aquel deseo y el asesinato, y esa idea se ha fijado en su pensamiento. Hubo el intento de La Dalia Negra, y del sobresaliente Mis rincones oscuros, pero el problema nunca fue superado. De esa manera, la historia desemboca en A la caza de la mujer, el trauma marca su vida y sus relaciones con el otro sexo. A ello se añade la marca impuesta por las circunstancias a la que me refería anteriormente: si quería publicar debía acortar sus libros, y de ahí su estilo directo y telegráfico, dinámico, una puñada en la cara del lector, a menudo desbordado por la velocidad de lo narrado. Su confesión en A la caza de la mujer, aunque no sea novela y el que no necesitaría ese traje, se ajusta firmemente a ese estilo hard-boiled, resultando el texto absorbente, vehemente, un carrusel que agarra de las solapas al lector y lo zarandea como a la puerta de un barucho de mala muerte en un callejón de Los Ángeles.
Pero, por eso mismo, porque Ellroy es Ellroy, engreído e insoportable, egocéntrico y enfant terrible, agent provocateur, y todos los términos en francés que puedan ocurrírsenos, por ello, por todo ello, habrá quién no aguante dos páginas de esta historia y la abandone aborrecido del recital de narcisismo desplegado. Estamos hablando de la truculenta vida del autor, por ejemplo, de la Trilogía Americana, dos de los tres libros que la integran, tal vez, los mejores que se hayan escrito en el género. Y eso ya merecería la atención de sus lectores.
Y si bien es cierto que alguien se preguntará lo que le pueden importar los traumas de este hombre, así como sus conquistas, su relación con el alcohol y las drogas, y sus historias con las mujeres, en el fondo impera una tremenda verdad: su madre fue asesinada realmente y eso condicionó, ha condicionado su vida y su escritura, su literatura, situando estas memorias -si así queremos denominarlas- muy por encima de otros recuerdos y confesiones de autores más pendientes de mostrar con quienes han comido, se han codeado, las fiestas a las que han ido, todo ello embadurnado en complejas y autoindulgentes visiones e interpretaciones literarias. Este, no es el caso.
No deja de sorprenderme una circunstancia: con lo que me gusta Ellroy no he incluido en esta bitácora nunca una crítica de ningún libro suyo. Ni de Amérca, ni de Seis de los grandes, ni de El asesino de la carretera, títulos todos ellos imprescindibles para el género y para la literatura. Eso me recuerda que en breve debo hacerlo, que tengo una deuda contraída con los ratos de excelente diversión y entretenimiento que me han proporcionado, anclados sólidamente en una gran calidad rezumante. Cuando el primer libro de Ellroy que reseño aquí es A la caza de la mujer, eso resulta significativo. Incluso el título lo es, que lo podría confundirse con una novela sobre un asesino en serie. Y en cierto modo la literatura de Ellroy, toda esa literatura, es así, la de un asesino en serie. Sus párrafos no son sino una pistola cargada, a veces.
Otras veces, ya es un calibre del 45 humeante que nos ha dado entre los ojos.
Es necesario poner algo de distancia entre un texto confesional y biográfico y sus novelas. Algunas de sus legendarias novelas negras necesariamente deben situarse por encima de este libro, pero sólo por eso. Un texto obsesivo, sociópata, atormentado y abrumador para un libro desmesurado y desbordado como su autor. Una confesión relampagueante.
August 25, 2018
Viinaa, huumeita ja naisia. Ja vielä vähän lisää naisia.
Miksi edes omistan tämän kirjan? En tiedä. Miksi edes luin tämän? En tiedä.
Miksi edes omistan tämän kirjan? En tiedä. Miksi edes luin tämän? En tiedä.
July 16, 2022
Ο Ελρόυ συγκονίζει όταν αυτο-ηθογραφείται.
July 13, 2023
Why does there always have to be a sex memoir?
That's the primary thought that will go for your head for the first 40 or so pages of the slim and easily read memoir from the Demon Dog.
After that, however, it does turn its gaze from lurid bedroom exploits to the tortured, tortured mind of the author. In case you hadn't read My Dark Places before this one, James Ellroy's mother was murdered when he was 9 years old and it might have messed him up in the head just a little bit. My Dark Places was a pretty grim memoir that detailed a lot of his trauma, this work goes even further and actively makes me wonder how he has managed to have such an illustrious career with all these ghosts in his brain.
The middle section is the most engaging and insightful into Ellroy himself, and details the difficult, post LA Confidential adaptation, part of his life. Trying to top his masterpiece American Tabloid while his marriage disintegrates. He never says it, but Ellroy almost certainly has some form of OCD and suffers a mental breakdown. The description of which are suffocating and convey his agony well.
The rest of the book, was still engaging but significantly less so since you see him make the same mistakes he made earlier in his life again and again. There are also fewer insights into his works, aside from hints at film and TV projects that never materialized.
There was a surprising amount of ink given to his early, pre LA Quartet novels. He trashes them, but I actually really enjoyed them and enjoyed hearing more about their birth.
All in all, I would only recommend this for Ellroy fanatics like myself. My Dark Places works as a literature and as a memoir, but The Hilliker Curse is only for those who want salacious news about the author.
It is rather funny that Ellroy's predictions all came to nothing in the end. The woman he decribes as HER and his salvation ended their relationship not long after The Hilliker Curse came out; he's now back with his 2nd wife, novelist Helen Knode.
That's the primary thought that will go for your head for the first 40 or so pages of the slim and easily read memoir from the Demon Dog.
After that, however, it does turn its gaze from lurid bedroom exploits to the tortured, tortured mind of the author. In case you hadn't read My Dark Places before this one, James Ellroy's mother was murdered when he was 9 years old and it might have messed him up in the head just a little bit. My Dark Places was a pretty grim memoir that detailed a lot of his trauma, this work goes even further and actively makes me wonder how he has managed to have such an illustrious career with all these ghosts in his brain.
The middle section is the most engaging and insightful into Ellroy himself, and details the difficult, post LA Confidential adaptation, part of his life. Trying to top his masterpiece American Tabloid while his marriage disintegrates. He never says it, but Ellroy almost certainly has some form of OCD and suffers a mental breakdown. The description of which are suffocating and convey his agony well.
The rest of the book, was still engaging but significantly less so since you see him make the same mistakes he made earlier in his life again and again. There are also fewer insights into his works, aside from hints at film and TV projects that never materialized.
There was a surprising amount of ink given to his early, pre LA Quartet novels. He trashes them, but I actually really enjoyed them and enjoyed hearing more about their birth.
All in all, I would only recommend this for Ellroy fanatics like myself. My Dark Places works as a literature and as a memoir, but The Hilliker Curse is only for those who want salacious news about the author.
It is rather funny that Ellroy's predictions all came to nothing in the end. The woman he decribes as HER and his salvation ended their relationship not long after The Hilliker Curse came out; he's now back with his 2nd wife, novelist Helen Knode.
April 28, 2020
Ett extraordinärt självporträtt.
August 11, 2014
Scope it out in 3D, hepcats. Dig those crazy goggles. Hit Amazon and buy yourself a pair of X-Ray Spex.
Then scoot off out of Normaltown and rent, beg, borrow, steal or even buy a copy of Ellroy's first memoir: My Dark Places. Check out my alliteratively amped review of that torrid tome here on this site.
In this memoir, Ellroy describes his first memoir as self-serving. That goes treble-quadruple for this book. Yes, he rehashes the history in potted form...
Underwear-sniffing peeper and prowler. His M.O. was simple back in those Jurassic days. Scarf the phone number from the book. Hit the nearest public phone. Dial in. No one home? Pop the latch, prowl the pad, and snatch panties.
We get a little more of his murdered mother Geneva in this book. Not much. And that's the thing. This woman, her life, her death, these items...
Define Ellroy's relationships with women. This book covers most of his marriages, dalliances with other women, and his career. His first wife makes it out of the book alive. We don't hear much about her.
Snapshot of a life lived weird. Beethoven features in a major way.
We get more on ex-wife Helen Knode, as expected. Ellroy's crack-up, divorces, longings, lusts, libidinous musings...
That's what we drool through here. In anyone else's hands, this would make for a one-star reading experience. I've given the book three stars because Ellroy raises the piece above that level.
Go and read his self-serving memoir, My Dark Places, before you read this. If you aren't all that into the guy, read that book instead of this one.
His pursuit of cellists made me think Ellroy would've made a loopy serial killer. You may think the same before getting too far into this volume.
For rabid fans, there are a few treats in store. If you are new to his work, find him in documentaries on YouTube. Read the first memoir. Try his earlier books before he gets into writing the major stuff. Acclimatise yourself. Learn the landscape. Dip in and bandage the toe you gave up to the sharks in the pool.
Splitsville.
Then scoot off out of Normaltown and rent, beg, borrow, steal or even buy a copy of Ellroy's first memoir: My Dark Places. Check out my alliteratively amped review of that torrid tome here on this site.
In this memoir, Ellroy describes his first memoir as self-serving. That goes treble-quadruple for this book. Yes, he rehashes the history in potted form...
Underwear-sniffing peeper and prowler. His M.O. was simple back in those Jurassic days. Scarf the phone number from the book. Hit the nearest public phone. Dial in. No one home? Pop the latch, prowl the pad, and snatch panties.
We get a little more of his murdered mother Geneva in this book. Not much. And that's the thing. This woman, her life, her death, these items...
Define Ellroy's relationships with women. This book covers most of his marriages, dalliances with other women, and his career. His first wife makes it out of the book alive. We don't hear much about her.
Snapshot of a life lived weird. Beethoven features in a major way.
We get more on ex-wife Helen Knode, as expected. Ellroy's crack-up, divorces, longings, lusts, libidinous musings...
That's what we drool through here. In anyone else's hands, this would make for a one-star reading experience. I've given the book three stars because Ellroy raises the piece above that level.
Go and read his self-serving memoir, My Dark Places, before you read this. If you aren't all that into the guy, read that book instead of this one.
His pursuit of cellists made me think Ellroy would've made a loopy serial killer. You may think the same before getting too far into this volume.
For rabid fans, there are a few treats in store. If you are new to his work, find him in documentaries on YouTube. Read the first memoir. Try his earlier books before he gets into writing the major stuff. Acclimatise yourself. Learn the landscape. Dip in and bandage the toe you gave up to the sharks in the pool.
Splitsville.
September 12, 2024
A la edad de diez años, en 1959, James Ellroy perdió a su madre. Fue un día después de recibir un regalo de su parte. Después de que el Ellroy niño le deseara la muerte. Fue un día después en que su madre le había abofeteado por preferir vivir con el padre.
James Ellroy quedó maldito después de su pérdida y trataría de buscar a su madre en todas las mujeres que amaría en el futuro.
A partir del abandonó obligado por parte del homicidio de su madre, Ellroy pasó a convertirse en voyeour/cazador, en busca de la mujer deseada, la amante perfecta, la suplente de Jane Hilliker como madre, esposa y acompañante. Y en su vida aparecerían varias mujeres que para él, en su momento, representaban bien ese papel.
Esta novela autobiográfica nos lleva por el dolor de la separación y la carga emocional de la pérdida de la madre de James Ellroy, autor consagrado de L.A. Confidential y Black Dalhia entre otras novelas. Ellroy pasó necesidad y un abandono auto impuesto, donde sufrió enfermedad, alcoholismo y vagabundeo. Hasta que decidió llevarlo a un nuevo nivel de castigo; comenzó a escribir novelas, más que nada como una forma de tributo para su madre y el amor que les fue arrebatado.
Sin tapujos, pero sí con mucho cuidado, Ellroy nos cuenta sus desventuras como joven vouyerista, vagabundo alcohólico, escritor megalómano y ansioso. Todo siempre con la carga de la maldición Hilliker, donde siempre la buscaría como amiga, esposa, amante, pero donde él representaría el papel más importante; su protector y salvador.
Una novela un tanto difícil por ser biográfica dentro del tortuoso camino de Ellroy pero a la par adictiva.
James Ellroy quedó maldito después de su pérdida y trataría de buscar a su madre en todas las mujeres que amaría en el futuro.
A partir del abandonó obligado por parte del homicidio de su madre, Ellroy pasó a convertirse en voyeour/cazador, en busca de la mujer deseada, la amante perfecta, la suplente de Jane Hilliker como madre, esposa y acompañante. Y en su vida aparecerían varias mujeres que para él, en su momento, representaban bien ese papel.
Esta novela autobiográfica nos lleva por el dolor de la separación y la carga emocional de la pérdida de la madre de James Ellroy, autor consagrado de L.A. Confidential y Black Dalhia entre otras novelas. Ellroy pasó necesidad y un abandono auto impuesto, donde sufrió enfermedad, alcoholismo y vagabundeo. Hasta que decidió llevarlo a un nuevo nivel de castigo; comenzó a escribir novelas, más que nada como una forma de tributo para su madre y el amor que les fue arrebatado.
Sin tapujos, pero sí con mucho cuidado, Ellroy nos cuenta sus desventuras como joven vouyerista, vagabundo alcohólico, escritor megalómano y ansioso. Todo siempre con la carga de la maldición Hilliker, donde siempre la buscaría como amiga, esposa, amante, pero donde él representaría el papel más importante; su protector y salvador.
Una novela un tanto difícil por ser biográfica dentro del tortuoso camino de Ellroy pero a la par adictiva.
August 20, 2010
I am not quite sure how I feel about Ellroy's latest venture. Though, I was affected by this memoir. At a young age, he began stalking women and continued to hone his talent to the current day. From breaking into homes, to obsessively looking for "The One", Hilliker is borderline psychotic in his pursuit of women. Most run from him, yet, a few are so completely enamored, they forget their own wedding vows to be with him. Maybe they are just attracted to the writer in him. Or, more disturbingly, his stalkerish-stare-right-through-you-bad boy persona. Whatever the case, this memoir is a deeply honest portrayal of a dysfunctional human being.
August 9, 2017
De cómo Ellroy sobrevive y busca su lugar en el mundo a través de la escritura, luego de que asesinaran a su madre cuando él era niño. El autor, a través de sus novelas quiere redimirse y absolver la culpa que siente por haber deseado la muerte de su progenitora días antes de su muerte. Y tanto en la imaginación como en sus interacciones reales va a la caza de mujeres que le permitan completar a aquella que le falta y nunca pudo llegar a conocer en realidad. En este libro lo acompañamos a entender las decisiones de vida que hizo y su esperanza de un nuevo camino que le permita curar sus heridas.
January 17, 2016
"La malédiction est vieille de cinquante-deux ans. J'ai passé cinq décennies à chercher une femme pour détruire un mythe. Ce mythe que j'ai créé moi-même....
Lentement, constamment, les femmes m'ont révélé le coût de mes actes...
J'existe à présent dans un matriarcat. Je suis le garçon égaré que des femmes fortes ont sauvé et lâché dans la nature. Ce garçon, je l'ai laissé derrière moi en rédigeant ce récit..."
Lentement, constamment, les femmes m'ont révélé le coût de mes actes...
J'existe à présent dans un matriarcat. Je suis le garçon égaré que des femmes fortes ont sauvé et lâché dans la nature. Ce garçon, je l'ai laissé derrière moi en rédigeant ce récit..."
November 16, 2011
Weeping-Jesus-on-the-cross, what sort of wayward trip was that? I suppose blazing through such in one sitting is the ideal route, but I am left here shaking my head and searching for ashes in my mouth.
September 27, 2010
Enjoyed it very much. Wouldn't recommend it except to major Ellroy fans or fellow diggers in the dirt with an eye for the creepy dark places.
September 27, 2018
Literally 7 hours of James Ellroy screaming in my ear. The more I listen, the more I see him in all of his characters.
January 11, 2019
I, like the author, made the mistake of assuming his real life would be as entertaining as his fiction. This book is self-indulgent and boring.
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