The Choirboys

by Joseph Wambaugh

The classic novel of the LA Police

Genres: Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Police, Mystery Thriller, Humor

368 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 1976

About the author

Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh Jr. was an American writer known for his fictional and nonfictional accounts of police work in the United States. Many of his novels are set in Los Angeles and its surroundings and feature Los Angeles police officers as protagonists. He won three Edgar Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Before his writing career Wambaugh received an associate of arts degree from Chaffey College and joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 1960. He served for 14 years, rising from patrolman to detective sergeant.

Reviews

[Kemper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite being a big crime/mystery fan, I’m not really into the scores of police procedural novels or dozens of TV shows that litter the networks these days. For me, all of these stories try to portray the various kinds of cops as politically correct robots who go about their jobs with a kind of determined detachment except for maybe the occasional bit of angst to add a little faux drama to the mix.

To get me interested in a cop story these days, it has to be some kind of ultra-realistic look at the bureaucratic nightmare of real police work like The Wire. Or be an epic tragedy with corrupt characters like The Shield. Or have some kind of offbeat protagonist that interests me like Raylan Givens on Justified. But show me those soulless pretty people tracking serial killers by getting their DNA tests done in three minutes on a CSI show and my eyes glaze over.

Joseph Wambaugh worked the LAPD in the 1960s-70s, and during an era when cops were almost invariably portrayed as square jawed heroes, he wrote novels that dared to show the police as very flawed, damaged and relatable human beings. For my money, probably his best work along those lines was The Choirboys.

The book begins with the LAPD brass in an uproar about a potential scandal involving a killing during a ‘choir practice’. As they try to figure out a way to spin the story and minimize the damage, we get the impression that a bunch of police officers went on a drunken rampage and somebody died as a result.

Wambaugh then shifts through the events leading up to the death by following 5 pairs of uniformed police officers working out of LA’s Wilshire division. There’s the tough veteran ‘Spermwhale’ Whalen about to get his 20 years in. Baxter Slate is a former classics student haunted by a disastrous tour working Juveniles. ‘Roscoe’ Rules is a racist moron with knack for taking the most routine calls and turning them into riots. Sam Niles has been stuck with his annoying partner and supposed best friend, Harold, since they were in Vietnam together. Spencer is a clothes horse who works his ‘police discount’ to buy high end retail stuff at wholesale prices. The rest of the so-called choir boys are also a collection of misfits with disastrous personal lives.

The cops engage in what they call choir practice where they go to MacArthur Park with cases of booze they’ve mooched from liquor store owners, and then they proceed to get totally pants-shitting howl-at-the-moon drunk while gang banging a pair of police groupies.

Doesn’t make them sound very appealing, does it?

What Wambaugh shows is that these choir practices are usually the direct result of the horrible things the cops routinely have to deal with while constantly being harassed by their bosses for violations of petty rules while ignoring the emotional well-being of the officers. The worst part of it is that while the choirboys are routinely abused while dealing with parade of ignorant lowlifes and see the worst that people can do to themselves and each other, it’s all so achingly common place that they can’t muster more than slight contempt and dark humor. Until they see something so horrible that they call for a choir practice to block it out with booze and meaningless sex.

The intellectual Baxter puts Wambaugh’s theme into words while giving a drunken lecture during a choir practice:

I mean that the weakness of the human race is stupefying and that it’s not the capacity for evil which astounds young policemen like you and me. Rather it’s the mind boggling worthlessness of human beings. There’s not enough dignity in mankind for evil and that’s the most terrifying thing a policeman learns.”

What keeps this book from being just a depressing look into the abyss is that it’s black cop humor is constant. There’s almost nothing that happens that can’t be made into sick humor and there’s no asshole boss so irritating that he can’t be the victim of an ingenious prank for revenge. It’s crude and socially unacceptable, but it’s really damn funny, too.

Rereading this in 2011, I could only imagine the howls of outrage if something like the choirboys became a media scandal. A gang of drunken cops abusing their badges to score free liquor for binge drinking and pulling trains on a couple of cocktail waitresses in a public park would get a whole lot of people fired these days, but the great thing about Wambaugh is the way he convinces you that that the choirboys were usually good cops deserving of respect and sympathy.

[Checkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

So that was The Choirboys. Interesting. Alright how to review this novel? There have been a few fellow Goodread reviewers who have asked me how the book stacks up to the real thing. Is is it accurate and truthful? Are cops really like that and so on and so forth. After giving it some thought I think the best way to approach this reviw is to break it into sections. So here goes.

ACCURATE & TRUTHFUL (with some reservations)

The book is mostly a series of events leading up to a tragedy. There is no central plot involving a criminal mastermind, criminal conspiracy or an investigation. We are introduced to many different officers and different experiences they have both professionally and personally. The events are tragic, hilarious, semi-serious, bizarre, disgusting and horrific. Some of these events took me back to calls I've been on in the past.

I can remember a suicide in which the victim used a magnum revolver on himself, dealing with a drunk driver who was totally naked (except for his fishing hat), and almost shooting another officer when he ran up behind me when I was looking for a suspect who had just beaten another person to the point of death with a claw hammer. The struggle to stay awake during the long stretches of nothing and the non-stop craziness when call after call is stacked up and there is just not enough officers to go around. The unexpected violence, the smell (now that's something that one can only experience first-hand. The smells that cops experience.Sorry but the Internet will never convey that experience) and the grinding of the teeth when one's instinct demands that a suspect be pounded, but the law and society says otherwise. Wambaugh accurately conveys the anger, irritations, humor, pathos, boredom, fear and exhilaration that is part and parcel of police work. He does a very good job in that respect.

I've known cops who have crashed and burned. I worked for several years with an officer who fought a losing battle with alcohol and had a couple failed marriages. He finally killed himself. I've known other (former) officers who made some really bad choices (mostly having to do with sex - of course) and lost their jobs. In a couple cases they also went to prison. It happens. The officers depicted in this novel are based on actual cops. I wish I could say that my profession is made up of god-like people, but that would be a crock and everyone knows it.


NOT SO TRUTHFUL(in my humble opinion)

There are a few things to keep in mind when reading this novel. First of all I have gotten the impression (based on reading and instinct) that Wambaugh had pretty much resigned from the L.A.P.D. in spirit ,if not body, by the time he began writing The Choirboys. He had already had a couple best sellers in "The New Centurions" and "The Blue Knight" and it was time to commit full-time to his writing career. Knowing that he was going to resign before Choirboys was published Wambaugh uses the novel as his chance to vent about all those things that he didn't like about the L.A.P.D. Why not? He was wealthy (or getting there real quick) and he didn't need the job anymore. That tends to make one braver. As a result the book presents a very slanted view of the department's administration.

I've been in the profession of law enforcement for over fourteen years and I work for a much smaller department (65 officers vs. thousands of officers like L.A.P.D.). Our administration has made decisions that have irritated me as well. However administration has a very tough job involving pressures that I don't experience at my level and I'm okay with that. I don't believe that everyone past the rank of sergeant is an absolute and total idiot. Which is the impression that Wambaugh conveys in this book. Really? All of them? If that was the case I'm surprised that anyone got paid and the fleet kept running not to mention the lights and water keep running (yes police departments have to pay for utilities) No it's too much. I think that Wambaugh was influenced by the time period when he wrote the book. The serious anti-establishment attitude that was so prevalent in the early seventies. It slants the book and gives it an air of unreality. I also believe that it's sour grapes. He was getting ready to quit and he had had enough. So basically he is giving the finger to the department and that's all there is to that.

The officers that the book focuses on are screw-ups. Make no mistake they're bad cops (most of them) in so many ways. Misogynistic, alcoholic, abusive, corrupt, racist, and so on. Any police department worth it's salt would get rid of those officers as fast as it could if it had any sense whatsoever. But they are purposefully exaggerated characters and they are based (loosely I hope) on actual L.A.P.D. cops that Wambaugh had either heard about or knew. In Choirboys he brought all these cops together and put them in the same division on the same watch. While one will always have one or two colorful officers on any team you probably won't have ten of those officers working together.

We don't have choir practices in my department. We/I work a twelve hour shift (not an eight hour shift). I work as a one man car ,not a two man car, meaning that I deal with everything on my own. I don't have a partner to divide up the work load. A a result when my shift is over I'm tired. I go home to the wife and kids. I've been married for twenty-three years and I don't screw around on my wife. However that's just me.

The book was written over forty years ago and there have been big changes not only within the L.A.P.D., but in America law enforcement and American society in general (for example there are many more women now wearing badges and they are on the road). Try to keep that in mind when reading this novel. Please.

CONCLUSION

A pretty good book all in all. I found the chapter near the end in which there is a blow-by-blow accounting of a choir practice to be rather tedious. It dragged on too long. Obnoxious drunks are obnoxious drunks. Doesn't matter if they are cops or civilians. I don't like obnoxious drunks and I found myself skimming through that chapter. I wasn't offended by the various racial epitaphs nor should you be. First of all the book is forty years old and second of all police work isn't a nice job. It can get ugly at times and cops are called things and say things that aren't always real pleasant. If you're sensitive about such things (and no I am not making fun of you if you are) then don't read this novel. However by today's standards it's actually pretty mild - with a few notable exceptions.

So if you are curious about what a patrolman experiences (and it is about the patrol experience - not the detective) then give The Choirboys a read. Just remember what I wrote. It isn't a real pleasant read, but you might find it rather enlightening.

[Patryx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ragazzi del coro mi ha fatto l'occhiolino sin da quando l'ho tirato fuori da una scatola dopo il trasloco. Non ricordavo neanche della sua esistenza: era stato circa tre anni chiuso in un garage in attesa del suo momento.
Ogni volta che mi avvicinavo alla libreria, il mio sguardo cadeva su quel libro ed era come se mi chiamasse, ma pensavo a quello che avevo letto sulla quarta di copertine e mi dicevo: “No, non è proprio il mio genere... Non funzionerebbe!” Il titolo suggestivo e la copertina accattivante (una ragazza discinta che balla sotto le luci dei riflettori osservata da due poliziotti in divisa) alla fine mi hanno definitivamente sedotta e ho ceduto al richiamo diventando anche io parte della stazione di polizia di Wilshire, una zona di Los Angeles.
Già nel primo capitolo vengono descritti i fatti salienti: una decina di poliziotti (i ragazzi del coro appunto) si riuniscono abitualmente alla fine del turno di notte vicino lo stagno del parco MacArthur per stare insieme, ma soprattutto, per ubriacarsi. Durante una di queste riunioni un incidente fatale costa la vita ad un giovane omosessuale che si trovava nel parco. I capitoli successivi riavvolgono il nastro all'indietro e ci fanno conoscere i dieci protagonisti raccontando i fatti antecedenti alla fatidica riunione che cambia la vita di tutti loro.
L'aspetto di questo romanzo che mi è piaciuto è l'andamento “a spirale” del racconto: dalla superficie dei fatti, capitolo dopo capitolo, l'autore scava dentro l'animo tormentato dei poliziotti che si trovano di fronte a tutte le miserie umane senza nessuno con cui poter condividere il carico emotivo che il loro lavoro comporta. I loro casi non sono eclatanti, non c'è la risoluzione brillante dell'enigma, a cui ci hanno abituato i poliziotti televisivi. Non c'è il plauso dei colleghi per la bravura dimostrata e non c'è neanche la soddisfazione personale per aver tolto un pericoloso assassino dalla circolazione. No, i ragazzi del coro si trovano ad arrestare homeless ubriachi che cercano disperatamente di finire all'ospedale psichiatrico per non tornare sulla strada, a tenere la mano a un suicida che affronta una morte lenta e dolorosa, a osservare, impotenti, bambini maltrattati che passano di famiglia in famiglia per poi terminare il loro giro su un tavolo dell'obitorio. Tutti, i veterani come i giovani alle prime armi, condividono la sensazione che il loro lavoro è inutile, che non migliorerà la società, anzi molto probabilmente renderà peggiore la vita dei poveri disgraziati che si trovano ad arrestare.
I capi non sono interessati alle problematiche psicologiche (o francamente psichiatriche) dei loro sottoposti: l'importante è fare bella figura con i giornalisti e con le vecchiette (che poi scrivono ai giornali). Nascondono l'evidenza e rifiutano di mettere in relazione il suicidio, così frequente tra i poliziotti, con il tipo di lavoro che questi svolgono. Gli stessi poliziotti, ovviamente diversi per storie personali e carattere, non sanno come affrontare quello che oggi chiamiamo “burn out”, se non ubriacandosi in gruppo e raccontandosi i fatti tragici, ridicoli, commoventi della giornata. Questi incontri funzionano come valvola di sfogo a breve termine ma non hanno alcun effetto terapeutico, anzi innescano un meccanismo perverso che porta all'autodistruzione personale e professionale.
Wambaugh (con un'esperienza di poliziotto a Los Angeles per dieci anni) conduce il lettore nell'inferno quotidiano dei dieci protagonisti e alla fine, a dispetto dell'opinione affrettata basata sui fatti descritti all'inizio, si finisce per parteggiare per coloro che affrettatamente abbiamo etichettato come “cattivi”. Nessuno di loro è un campione di bontà o un modello di onestà, ma la loro umanità conquista. Sono tutti vittime di un sistema che finisce per schiacciare i più deboli, soprattutto perché in questo sistema non è ammessa alcuna debolezza, sia essa la compassione per i più sfortunati o il ricordo bruciante della propria paura o ancora l'impossibilità di chiedere aiuto oppure di fare i conti con i propri fallimenti.
Il linguaggio è crudo e il turpiloquio è la regola, ma non è assolutamente fuori luogo o eccessivo in quanto assolutamente coerente con il carattere dei personaggi e con i fatti narrati.
La valutazione di 5/5 è una media tra il due che sicuramente darei per l'eccessiva ripetitività dei capitoli che raccontano gli incontri dei ragazzi del coro, le sbornie, gli scherzi di cattivo gusto e l'otto delle parti in cui vengono descritti i personaggi, anche quelli minori (che poi minori non sono).

[S.P. Aruna · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you only want to read one book by Joseph Wambaugh, this should be it. (That was my objective). While his earlier novels made cops out to be unambiguous good guys, this one makes an attempt, a bit satirical perhaps, to tell it like it is.

You might want to call it a black comedy, or perhaps a police force version of Catch-22, but for me it was a very naked, inside look at the social and psychological challenges of being a police officer, particularly for those with serious personality flaws to begin with, despite the sometimes lampoonish portrayl of the novel's characters.

It is important to keep in mind that Wambaugh was an active duty police officer when he started writing, until he decided to write this one (when he quit after 14 years, knowing this book would give him flak)

As such, the novel presents valuable insights into the nature of what is wrong with police departments in large cities in the US. In the book, we have a sample of 10 policemen, a large enough sample I should think, and every one of them is dysfunctional. The power of the uniform, brute excessive force, substance abuse, psychological stress, strained domestic relationships, etc., all added up to the downfall of the “choirboys.” It also illustrates the "Us and Them" attitude, with these guys so socially isolated, that they spend most of their off-duty time with each other. They feel that many of the people they're paid to protect are not unlike the suspects they arrest.

We can assume that the basis for the characters is drawn from Wambaugh's time in the LAPD, and suggests several things that need to be done, with the foremost being a comprehensive psychological evaluation of all candidates wanting to be law enforcement officers, and similar procedures for weeding out the bad ones, and addressing the conditions that make for bad cops.

Grim and morbid, spiced with scenes of twisted, deviant, even sickening humor, this novel is not for everyone.

Now a rant about the movie. I saw the film after I read the book, and it was such a mess I couldn't recognize it. It seems they got the wrong director, Robert Aldrich, to make it. A quote from Wikipedia, Aldrich stated, "...I don't find the fact that cops can't "cope" particularly rewarding; I can't relate to it. I don't know how to feel sorry for a cop" He also said "...I disagree with Wambaugh to such an extent that I don't think people really like cops."

Fair enough, except the result was more like another installment of Police Academy, just as stupid but not even funny. Wambaugh went into a rage, and he sued the production company and was paid $1 million in compensation. Hows that!

[Ben Winch]

This was good. Moving. Funny. It went on too long in places – got lost in its own sexual/scatalogical humour – but it stayed interesting overall and kept me reading, mostly with enjoyment, through 400+ pages. I didn’t read it for the quality of the prose, but the prose was good – good enough. I read it for the characters, the laughs, the glimpse of something foreign, exotic and mostly pretty much believable. I read it cos I hit a few bumps in the road and felt like lying on the bed with a book I could escape into. ‘No evil thing can happen to a good man, either in life or in death.’ So says Socrates somewhere late in the piece, and despite all that’s dark and painful here I came away believing it. On a side note, I’m guessing there’s a big Catch-22 influence: the structure that keeps circling back on itself, the tragic incident in the vortex, the chapters devoted to specific characters rather than split up chronologically, the black humour. Sure, it’s slight overreach – Catch-22 it ain’t – but it’s easy to read, makes sense, keeps you guessing. I liked it. And, to some degree, it spoke to me.

[Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poliziotti Bukowskiani al parco

I ragazzi del coro è un titolo che potrebbe dare l'idea di sbarbatelli che si divertono a cantare, magari con un gilet sotto la giacca, una bella cravatta intonata alla camicia, sorridenti, pieni di vita e con lo sguardo rivolto verso un futuro luminoso mentre le loro voci sognanti si fondono con il cielo.
Ho i brividi.

Invece no, per fortuna no.
In questo romanzo la materia è diversa, molto più interessante e cruda, e se di sguardo si vuol parlare allora si deve pensare a un presente molto reale (rapportato all'anno di uscita del romanzo, metà degli anni settanta).
Qui c'è una comitiva di agenti di polizia raccontata da un autore che in polizia ci ha lavorato 15 anni, che ha annusato talvolta il profumo ma più spesso il tanfo della strada. Ma non solo della strada, anche e soprattutto quello di un gruppo di persone tutori dell'ordine, che la divisa la portano per lavoro, qualcuno per vocazione, ma che restano pur sempre uomini e donne.
Ed è qui che Wambaugh brilla, nel non creare stereotipi e liberare a briglia sciolta i suoi protagonisti dopo il turno di lavoro, senza puntare il dito, quando danno vita tra di loro alle 'riunioni' in un parco di Los Angeles, il MacArthur, testimone silenzioso di molte scene dissacranti a base di sesso, droga e, perché no, di morte.

Sono storie incrociate di personalità diverse, stralunate, sconvolte, al limite del credibile, indegne, con un tocco di grottesco e ironia a tenerle unite per poter mostrare aspetti che cozzano violentemente con l'alone di eroismo che la Polizia si è cucita addosso.
Per capirci: Salvini respingerebbe il romanzo, io me lo sono goduto appieno e lo consiglio.

Ellroy è riuscito a sfruttare al meglio e in maniera più cupa e complessa le dinamiche 'interne' che Wambaugh ha seminato; non a caso è un suo estimatore.

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whereas The New Centurions was a rather grey and grimy introductory work, The Choirboys was a raunchy and grinning buzzbomb of a shock, delivered when I was still young enough to hold that cops were a far different, more upright and austerely dignified breed of human than the noodle-legged, drunken clowns carousing and stumbling about MacArthur Park so perfectly etched by Wambaugh. Here was a group of average schmoes punching the clock, dealing with the annoying and overbearing bureaucratic pricks who lounged about their headquarters offices and dreamed up new means of obstructing and wearing down the patrolmen, and interacting with the dregs of Los Angeles society, a badly wounded, messed up, selfish, impulsive, and intoxicated tribe, as likely to receive impatient blows from LA's finest as an understanding and reasoned professional intervention.

The nightly bullshit sessions in the park, where the beer flows freely, the anecdotes, complaints, and creatively-augmented war stories get passed around as easily as the rumpled barmaids who donate their bodies for recreational activities, and the Choirboys struggle to make sense of their lot in life - of the ugliness and violence that trails them like a shadow when they hit the streets, always threatening to overtake them and interfere with their penny-ante dreams and schemes - are the best part of the book, providing a hinge between the adventures the various partners encounter amidst the dirt and grit of low-end neighborhoods. In particular, the misanthropic pressure-cooker Roscoe Rules and Whaddayamean Dean - who, when drinking, quickly loses his ability to do more than grin, drool, and repeatedly ask the question that provided him with his nickname - are great creations, the lead performers in provoking the laughter that broke out time and again whilst I read this entertaining and - at the time - eye-opening book.

[Scott Sigler · Rating 3 out of 5]

For writers, this book is a fantastic example of defining and developing memorable characters by showing their day-to-day, repetitive traits. Wambaugh's characters pop fully formed into your head, set up shop, and hang out for the entire time you're reading the novel.

It would have been a four-star for me, except the repetitive traits became too repetitive. Whaddaya Mean Dean's schtick quickly grew old. Instead of his repetitive, oblivious questions being awesome seasoning, they became the full meal. The simplistic patterns of the characters seemed to largely ignore the realities around them.

I get that this novel reflects a required attitude of law enforcement officers, in that they have to build up a thick wall of mental and emotional armor to do their job. Part of that armor is ritualizing the daily drudgery in order to cope with a thankless job and the feeling that they rarely make an actual difference in the world. I'm guessing that Wambaugh nails that part of the cop life — but, by the end, the Choir Practice scenes grew tiring. Instead of being thrilled with every nuance of the work, as I was in the first half, I gradually grew to wonder when those scenes would end.

Three stars, but again, if you're a writer, this book feels like a master class on how to create memorable secondary characters.

[Aditya · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5

James Ellroy, who incidentally provides a great introduction to the book cited this as an inspiration and had my interest piqued. But nothing could have prepared me for The Choirboys. It is simultaneously one of the funniest and bleakest book I have ever read, a crime book that doubles as satire. Wambaugh about to quit LAPD after fourteen years, unloads years of pent up frustration here somehow converting it into a crime classic. This is as raw and crude as it gets. It imagines LAPD as a combination of inept administrators and mentally shot street cops. Stupidity is ingrained in the first group and depravity institutionalized in the second. Wambaugh aims to shock and succeeds without being solely defined by it.

This is thematically most similar to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest rather than any crime book. Anti-authority sentiments dominate the narrative and neither has an iota of sentimentality towards their characters. The rebels - The Choirboys are full time losers. They hold on to a pugnacious cynicism because it helps them forget that their prospects are deader than a fish that has been out of water for months. While the antagonists are bumbling officious fools resorting to petty tyranny as that is the only way for them to get their kicks. In a memorable example, a captain asks his underlings to offer an elaborate introduction to 911 calls. This is meant to soothe potential Good Samaritans, instead it gets a heart attack patient killed because he never gets to ask for an ambulance while a cop drones on at the other end of the phone.

The titular Choirboys are five pair of LAPD patrolmen who have seen so many things going wrong on the job that their only coping mechanism is organizing choir practices every other week. The 'choir practice' is the act of getting totally wasted and gangbanging a couple of police groupies. The book opens with the police top brass covering up a shooting at one of these parties. Then it follows the pairs individually to show how completely off the rails things have to go for a human mind to essentially become a showcase of sexual perversions, psychological disorders and suicidal thoughts.

There is not much in terms of a conventional plot. It is completely episodic. The Choirboys contain among others outright bigots - Roscoe Rules, complete idiots - Father Willie Wright, and frustrated underachievers - Spermwhale Whalen and Baxter Slate. Their sobriquets are explained while we follow them in incidents that are tonally all over the place. A drunk dwarf with missing legs who exposes himself to passing women is hilarious. A homeless eccentric who has to act violent to get admitted to a nuthouse instead of jail is heartbreaking. A child abuse case leaves nightmares. While a drunken plane ride is just too over the top and hence boring.

The atmosphere is unparalleled and the prose is loaded with gallows humor. It offers a gaze so unflinching that it makes you feel like a voyeur simply by virtue of reading it. So this would not work without the wit. It is the only way for the reader to wrap their head around the narrative which is an educational tour in the worst that the human race has to offer. One choirboy's greatest wish There was a word as dirty as nigger to apply to all mankind. Another whines I know shit roles downhill. But why am I always livin in the valley?

Wambaugh however has a tendency to get carried away and this needed one more edit. It could easily lose fifty pages. The choir practices get repetitive and the quality of hijinks the patrolmen get involved in drop over the course of the read. However a strong ending and the book's uniqueness means I would let it pass. Frankly this is like acting out your most perverted sexual kinks with your sister. Illicit, fun and memorable but also the kind of experience that keeps the shrink in business. Now you decide if that works for you.

[Rob Damon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remember those times when you were a child, on those rare occasions when you were allowed to stay up late and you got to see what TV shows and films your parents watch after you’d gone to bed? If, like me, you are old enough to have been a child when it was unheard of, or very rare, to have a TV in your room, then you might relate to the previous sentence.

Those nights, either because my parents were away and I was being looked after by a not so strict baby sitter, or was up late for some other unforeseen event, were like small glimpses into what awaited me in years to come when I finally turned into an “adult”.

Well, I don’t know if it’s because this book is about a bunch of 1970’s cops (doing things that young children would never imagine a “policeman” gets up to), that this book reminds me of those nights I was able to watch late night TV and hear unshaven, greasy looking men talk about “broads and tits”, or see those “broads” (and their “tits”) on the screen in some gritty cop show where the character swore, smoked dope, shot people, and had sex.

While reading this book, I was a child again, looking into the adult world and feeling nervous but excited about that world being my world one day. There’s no plot, but plenty of story. In fact it reads almost like a journal, or a commentary of police life in 1970’s Los Angeles through the eyes of very real characters with names like “Spermwhale”, and “Whatdoyamean Dean”. Amongst all the thugs, drunkenness, prostitute shagging, drug taking, odd shooting, and roll calls, this book convinces the reader that police are people just like the rest of us. The writer, apparently, was a cop, and so this can be read as a first-hand account of what life on the streets of LA was like back in those days. I wonder if it’s still the same. Definitely worth a read for its realism.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

E se i buoni non fossero poi cosi' buoni? Se gli agenti di polizia, gli angeli custodi preposti a "proteggere e servire", fossero in realta' un branco di psicotici, sadici e nella migliore delle ipotesi, degli spostati?. La risposta e' in questo bellissimo libro. Scritto alla grande, con dialoghi fulminanti e crudi, dal ritmo senza cedimenti, dove non di rado e inaspettatamente, si ride di gusto ma amaramente. Il bene e il male non sono mai stati cosi intrecciati, il bianco e il nero mai cosi' grigio. Perche' il male e' appiccicoso e si avvinghia, perche' il male e' un morbo contagioso che corrompe e distrugge anche i buoni e li conduce a volte fino al suicidio. Non ci sono rassicuranti certezze sulle strade di Los Angeles..... e forse nemmeno qui!

[L. · Rating 1 out of 5]

The gritty, unapologetic, unabashed inside view of...



Oh, who am I kidding? This is a gossip rag. Who's doing who, who's not doing who, who would like to do who, and ducks.

The book is a collection of stories centered around several LAPD officers who do very little police work. Their backstories are garbage. Just about every character wasn't worth pissing on if they were on fire. I was slightly entertained with the vice squad story and Sergeant Scuz, but he's only a bit player in one chapter and not enough to save this book.

This is the kind of book that makes me want to never ever live in Los Angeles.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

A big surprise for me. Freewheeling, hilarious and horrible in so many ways, as only a product of the 1970s could be.

[Paolo del ventoso Est · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il tipo di libri che preferisco; quelli dove all'inizio i personaggi ti fanno schifo, li trovi disgustosi, rozzi maschilisti, razzisti, cinici figli di puttana e quant'altro. Poi cominci a giustificarne uno, poi l'altro, poi del terzo dici "Beh, è un bravo ragazzo". E alla fine gli vuoi perfino bene, sono diventati buoni amici. Li ami tutti, e ti dispiace un casino per quel che gli capita dopo.
Ti hanno fatto piegare in due dalle risate, con i racconti di come ciascuno di loro è entrato nella leggenda; ti hanno scioccato con i resoconti da Wilshire, L.A., ghetto di ruffiani, puttane e gente pericolosa. Hai impressi i loro nomi in testa, neanche fossero esistiti davvero, neanche fossero poi brave persone, e ti pare di averceli seduti a fianco in macchina quando cerchi parcheggio (e pensi di avere una sirena sopra la testa, e vorresti avere almeno la pistola ad acqua rosa della buoncostume).
Wambaugh è uno che sa bene quello di cui parla, da ex sergente, ma soprattutto lo fa con una irresistibile vena comica (ricorda molto il "Comma 22" di Heller, ma sicuramente fa più ridere); vi sono pagine in questo libro che entrano di diritto nel mio personalissimo "gotha" dell'humour, episodi assolutamente indimenticabili come la gita in aereo...

[Judy Steiner Marino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story everyone should read!

This story has it all! I found myself laughing, getting angry, shredding tears and more as I went along for the ride with these LAPD men (& women). You can see how they are just ordinary people with many ordinary problems ... Then add in the stress and circumstances of a working policeman in a city like Los Angeles. It lets you see how the effects on the psyche of these folks in blue can easily go south. PTSD is quite a real thing and it can break one down into crumbs. This was written over 40 years ago, and, thankfully, now there are more ways they have to protect themselves from the mental anguish of dealing with crime and criminals and victims (i.e. medical & psychological services available thru their union) ... But we must remember that there are more people now and far worse crimes being committed on our streets. Be thankful for these people who take their lives and minds into the risky streets for you. Ask yourself ... Could I survive?

[Bernie Weisz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by Bernie Weisz Historian Pembroke Pines, Florida e mail addresS:BernWei1@aol.com

Title of Review: "The Choirboys: An Authentic 1975 Predawn Nightmare!"

In 1975, a Los Angeles Police Department officer-turned-novelist named Joseph Wambaugh wrote the controversial novel "The Choirboys". Still a hot book, Wambaugh wrote this almost 40 years ago! What was happening in 1975? Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, the city of Saigon on April 30th was surrendered to the North Vietnamese and all remaining Americans were evacuated, thus ending America's role in the Vietnam War. The U.S. "Apollo" and the Soviet "Soyuz" spacecrafts took off for their historic July 15th link up in space. Gerald Ford experienced two unsuccessful assassination attempts on his life, one by ex Charles Manson gang member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. Muhammed Ali defeated Joe Frazier in the "Thriller in Manilla", The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Minnesota Vikings in New Orleans to win the Super Bowl, and the Cincinnati Reds defeated the Boston Red Sox in 7 games to capture baseball's "fall classic", and Joseph Wambaugh penned "The Choirboys"

The Choirboys was a tragicomedy that parodied the effects of urban police work on young officers, which Wambaugh exaggerated through the exploits of his characters, a group of Los Angeles police officers in the Wilshire Division of the L.A.P.D. Wambaugh used a group of ten patrol officers as his main characters that held end-of-shift "get together's" which Wambaugh euphemistically coined "choir practice". It was sarcastically called "choir practice" to disguise the true nature of these meetings from their superior officers, which involved heavy drinking, complaints about their superior officers, war stories, and group sex with a pair of raunchy, overweight "police groupie" barmaids.

Wambaugh had these "choir practices" held in MacArthur Park, overviewing downtown Los Angeles. Although a novel, MacArthur Park (named after General Douglas MacArthur) is a real park located at 2230 West 6th St., in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Aside from Wambaugh's novel, MacArthur Park was featured as the setting in two movies, e.g. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", and "Training Day". Sardonically disillusioned, at these "choir practices", each of Wambaugh's officers expresses differently that many of the fellow officers they work with are not unlike the suspects they arrest, and the absurd regulations of the L.A.P.D. are oppressively enforced on them while their commanders (who usually acquire their positions through nepotism, favoritism and are without basic police work skills) indulge themselves hypocritically.

I do not want to be a "plot spoiler", but I will mention that the theme of police officer suicide provides all the way to the end of this novel a grim undercurrent to the black humor and is suggestive of a subconscious motivation for all "The Choirboy's" activities. The author, Joseph A. Wambaugh, born January 22, 1937, was originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a police officer, and joined the U.S. Marines at age 17. He works this into "The Choirboys" early, as he starts off with "The Secret of The Cave", which is a description of two future police officers experiences while they were trapped in a cave near Khe Sanh, South Vietnam in 1967. This little vignette at the beginning of "The Choirboys" has later disastrous consequences at the conclusion of this book, as the reader will find out. One of Wambaugh's characters, officer Sam Niles, due to the aforementioned Vietnam experience, developed severe claustrophobia, which later became a key factor in what Wambaugh called the "MacArthur Park shooting".

Wambaugh married at 18, received a B.A. and M.A. degree from California State University in Los Angeles, and then joined the L.A.P.D in 1960. Rising from the rank of patrolman to detective sergeant, he served until 1974. Because he was amongst their ranks, Wambaugh had a unique perspective on police work which greatly assisted him in his first novel, "The New Centurions", published in 1971 to critical acclaim and popular success. Wambaugh actually remarked while working, "I would have guys in handcuffs asking me for autographs". Both "The New Centurions" and his second book, "The Blue Knight" were novels written while he was actively employed in law enforcement. Quitting police work and turning to full time writing, "The Choirboys" was also the start of a new approach. Where in his first two books, Wambaugh portrayed conventional and heroic fictional policemen as the basis for his characters, starting with "The Choirboys", he began to use dark humor and outrageous incidents to emphasize the psychological peril inherent in modern urban police work.

Furthermore, in "The Choirboys", Wambaugh used names of many characters by often unflattering nicknames rather than given names e.g. Herbert "Spermwhale Whalen, "Father" Willie Wright and Henry "Roscoe" Rules. It is no coincidence that Wambaugh left the L.A.P.D. while writing "The Choirboys" as the reader will discover that in this book he became sharply critical of the command structure of the L.A.P.D. and individuals within it, and later, of city government as well. It is interesting to note that in 1977, "The Choirboys" was made into a film starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and James Woods. However, the movie lost the focus that Wambaugh so eloquently set forth in his novel. Wambaugh's book had "The Choirboys", i.e. the five sets of L.A.P.D partners which, while on night watch, were joined together by the pressures of the job. Wambaugh showed that this patrol squad was composed of men of varying temperaments and they chose to spend their pre-dawn hours decompressing from the job in relaxing drink and sex sessions they deemed "choir practice" in MacArthur Park. Wambaugh's thrust was that these men were endangered ultimately not by the violence of their jobs but by their choice of off-duty entertainment. However, in the film, the entire ending was changed by the producer. Ostensibly to make it more interesting, the film showed Wambaugh's characters as a bunch of drunken debauchers, while the book had "The Choirboys" as sympathetic characters. Ultimately the film was unsuccessful and critically panned. Wambaugh himself refused to have his name associated with the film, as considered it to be an extremely poor interpretation of his novel. For this reason, he is uncredited as it's creator. In 1995, "The Choirboys" was selected by the "Mystery Writers of America" as #93 of "The Top 100 Crime Novels of all Time". But Wambaugh didn't stop there. He has written a total of 19 nonfiction accounts of crime and detection and novels, with his most recent contribution to the literary field of "Hollywood Station" (2006 novel), "Hollywood Crows" (2008 novel) and finally, as of this writing, "Hollywood Moon" (2009 novel). However, "The Choirboys" will give you everything-crime, humor, sarcasm, violence, sex, gore, war and much more! A great book!

[D]

The first 100 pages or so were pretty difficult to read. You’re knee deep in some really heartless territory with no reprieve. But it sets you up for the second half where even the slightest brush with compassion leaves you reeling. Wambaugh is putting a lot of questions out there about humanity and evil. It’s unsettling and heartbreaking.

[Phillip Thurlby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a gumshoe kinda guy - I go for the classic, hard-boiled stories in the form of Chandler and Hammett and often have some apprehensions when it comes to police procedural(ish) stories. However, a colleague recommended this book to me and since I am working my way through the "Crime Masterworks" series I thought why not...?

Boy am I glad I did!

The story revolves around 70s LA cops who each have their own vices and troubles as they try to tackle the grim world they are empowered to protect. When things get a bit much (and they often do) these cops call a "Choir Practice", which is a booze and sex orgy, off duty in a public park.

The story sets off in a fairly episodic structure, with each pair of officers having their own "choir-practice-triggering" strange and dark experience. However, the intertwining of the characters and their stories is so deftly done that these dark and often humorous short stories are all pulling the characters together towards the final climax.

But the plot is irrelevant; it is the characters that make this story as brilliant as it is. I can not remember a story with so many central characters that all remained unique and memorable. Wambaugh's use of character nicknames is a mechanic that is as eloquent as it is simple and we are provided with a mini-character portrait as soon as we find out the tag each character has been given by the other officers. And whilst the characters are all rich with back story and mannerisms they never stray too far into the absurd. They avoid being cartoonish and remain grounded "real" men.

****SPOILER - SORT OF****

But the most interesting thing about all of them; their unifying feature and reason for the choir practices, is their vulnerability. These men are scared, not of the street, not of those around them, but of what the job will do to them. They are frightened of the day when they decide enough is enough and the fact that the more dark things they deal with on the job the quicker they might arrive at the decision.

****END OF SORT-OF SPOILER****

This is a book I feel genuinely enriched to have read

[Elliott Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Choirboys takes place in 1975 and follows the five pairs or partners as they try to deal with LA’s dangerous, insane and grotesque. Most crime novels center on a big case, or at least a single crime family. The Choirboys has a structure more like a ride along with certifiable patrolmen, which lets Wambaugh (himself a 14-year veteran of the LAPD) tell stories that are almost never told. Wambaugh’s experience mean it’s full of little details that I love, like the fact that they park thirty inches deeper into traffic when they pull someone over. That way both men can approach the car without getting run over by a motorist behind them driving H.U.A. (Head Up Ass.)
If you’re a fan of Homicide (and you should be) The Choirboys is worth checking out.

[WJEP · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time they call a hard-on a blue veiner you might giggle. But the 16th time (actual count) you groan. The raunchy in-jokes get a little tedious.

Wambaugh cleverly constructed this book as a set of nested stories. The outer story is the scandalous "choir practice." Inside that are defining yarns about each pair of not-so-choirboy cops. Inside that are the backstories of the cops and many anecdotes about the secondary characters. Many of these inner stories were memorable, for example:
— Punitively strip-searching a litigious Beverly Hiller who blew a red-light.
— A gin-soaked, vomitous raid on Palm Springs in a rented Cessna 172.
— Harassing the fruits that hang-out at a department-store shithouse.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the start this book seems to be the usual patter about some odd ball cops. Somewhere around page 15 I realized this book is absolutely brilliant. A bunch of policemen unwind in LAs McArthur park, each party is more debauched and awful then the next as each party serves as a release valve. The writer was a policeman himself and each story shines through with an unparalleled veracity. The experiences flit from so funny it hurt to so jaw droppingly awful you cannot understand how anyone could be exposed to something like that and come out unscathed. Of course none of them do come out unscathed. Brilliance comes in the most surprising packages sometimes.

[Feliks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and raunchy and great. Not sure how the movie adaptation failed with comedy this grotesque (just look at the casting, too: Louis Gossett, Jr; Charles Durning; James Woods; Randy Quaid, Perry King, Tim McIntire, Don Stroud, Burt Young...) and directed by the legendary Robert Aldrich and it still couldn't work.

Anyway yeah the book definitely rocks; the movie just wasn't allowed to be as dirty as it needed to be.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first novel Wambaugh wrote after retiring as a detective due to his newfound fame. The best book he's written with a distinct change in tone: dark, disturbing and overtly contemptuous of the LAPD.

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic and nearly classical cop tragedy.

This book starts out disgusting and dehumanizing. A bunch of worse douchebags you'd have a hard time finding. About halfway through the book, though, the author starts letting a little sympathy shine in, only to set up a horrific tragedy at the end.

I hated and enjoyed this one, which I think was the author's point. There is something to be said about his leaving out the worst of the real-life LAPD at the time, though. As bad as the characters here could be, history speaks of worse.

I can't recommend this unless you like classical-type tragedy. If you've ever wanted to see people getting what they deserve but still feel bad about it, here's your book.

[Barry Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hadn't re-read this classic since the 1970's when it first came out. If anything, it's as outrageously funny, relevant, troubling, thought-provoking and sad as it was then. It was ground-breaking at that time for its advocacy campaigning for mental health support for policemen and criticism of police hierarchy but looking at today's headlines and police scandals, nothing has changed much in the last half-century and it all applies equally (if not more so) today. A sharp look at problems nobody seems to want resolved. - BH.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've enjoyed some of Wambaugh's books, but this one was dated and depressing. I gave it three stars because it was somewhat novel--no pun intended--for its day. Also, it probably was a pretty real view of what some cops went through, but it was a particularly sad group of cops.

[ColumbusReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book back in 1976. I wasn't reading a lot back then just a selection of books that I thought I might really enjoy. I really, really enjoyed Wambaugh back in the day and I really, really enjoyed this one.

4.5 stars

[Neal Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Combines the violence of James Ellroy with the mean-spiritedness of a gross-out movie.

[Abra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someday when I'm feeling more eloquent I'll write a proper review of this book. I first read it almost fifteen years ago and I still reread it once every few years.

I've seen other reviews that call it "sociology not literature" and there may be something to that. What the book says about humanity is definitely the driving point. But Wambaugh's voice is uniquely suited to crime drama and I think the book is well paced, compelling, starkly descriptive, and the dialogue is excellent.

It's also hilarious. There is a lot of over-the-top hijinks, a lot of cynical witticisms, that balance the underlying darkness of the whole novel. The humor is a huge part of the book and can't be understated. It will have you laughing right up until it has you crying.

The book follows the lives of ten police officers in the months leading up to a terrible event. Each chapter focuses on a different pair of officers, on the horrible and hilarious things they witness on the street, and how it all starts leaving permanant scars on them mentally and emotionally. While each chapter stands alone, as the book progresses, they begin to interweave and pick up intensity until you can just see the snowball of horrible events start rolling.

It should probably be mentioned that very few of the characters are likeable. Most of them are pretty lousy cops, mysoginistic, misanthropic, corrupt, you name it. But this is the cool and weird part -- none of that matters. You start empathizing with them anyway, even the worst of them (I'm looking at you Roscoe Rules!) because you are right there along with them, witnessing the insanity, watching the way they are brutalized by what they see every day and by the lack of support from their own administration. They never really stop disgusting you but you start rooting for them anyway. It really makes you think.

Side note, because authenticity matters to some people, Wambaugh was an LAPD officer for almost fifteen years. My brother, who has been an officer for almost a decade, loves this book. He says that obviously times have changed amd the corruption, sexism, and racism is not the same... but theoverall tone of the book and insight to a cop's mentality is spot on, even now.

[Olivermagnus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Choirboys is probably Joseph Wambaugh's best known and highest regarded novel, and quite the sensation when published in 1975 for its take on police life and mixture of black comedy and social comment.

Set in 1974 in central Los Angeles, "The Choirboys" follows the lives of five pairs of patrolmen working the night shift over a six-month period, culminating in a fatal shooting in MacArthur Park, where the men gather periodically for Choir Practice which is really just an excuse to get drunk and let off steam.

There really is no storyline or plot. It’s basically a profile of a group of uniformed patrol officers and their “war stories”. They’re vulgar, sexist, racist, and everything else that’s not politically or socially correct. Back in the days when it was written, a lot of police officers commented they recognized themselves or someone they knew in these stories.

Each chapter outdoes the other in terms of crime, violence, abuse, and the limits of human depravity. Wambaugh introduces two new characters per chapter with some biographical details, spreads a fair degree of very black humor, but always clouded with despair.

This book was published fifty years ago and if you are easily offended or put off by some truly disgusting characters and stories, "step away from this book"! I usually handle this stuff much better than I did this time. I am still thinking about the characters, though, so I have to give the author credit for that.