The past day 1 the American writer James Ellroy received the Pepe Carvalho Award in the Black Novel Festival of Barcelona that ends today. One of the most important world writers of the genre, Ellroy is also a character in himself for whom the definition of «Rabid dog" It is not going on purpose. Now a new edition of My dark cornersHis autobiography so dark or more than those twisted, dense and more than black novels that he writes.

Who knows me knows about my love story with him, dating back to the beginning of this millennium. I owe him a good part of my absolute passion for the genre in its most raw, violent and visceral version. A long time ago I owed him a few words, so today there is an article very very personal.

The Mad Dog

I enjoy the foul language, the cops beating up a detainee ...

I am the king of the crime novel.

I don't give a shit about the present.

James Ellroy, Barcelona, ​​February 2018

With Ellroy there is no middle ground. Either passionate or abhorrent in equal measure, as a writer or as a person. But if you are passionate in both facets, PASSION. If your Literary network of blood, crimes, police corruption and crude dissection of the most abominable human nature, it's already hard to get away. If you are hypnotized by her so unique style of telegraphy and neck cutting without anesthesia, you will be infected without remedy. And if you are fascinated by an also unique gallery of characters, each one more criminal, disturbed, rogue, brutal or corrupt, and still, human, you will no longer have salvation.

Ellroy, a devout Angeleno from his hometown and who has not wanted to count the time (nor is he interested in) beyond 1972, is as character or more than those of his novels. Irreverent, histrionic, provocative, incendiary in his ideas and with his words, narcissistic and allegedly disturbed or disturbing. These days, without going any further, it is leaving pearls as politically incorrect as the previous ones. Because if something is Ellroy it is precisely incorrect in all ways. And that, in these times, is both a daring and an achievement.

His personality surpasses his stark literature or rather reflects it. Be the protagonist of a terrible personal story in childhood, how was the never solved rape and murder of his mother, certainly marks the existence of anyone. How he did it in Ellroy can be seen in great detail without censorship in the aforementioned My dark corners. But to explore the world in which he lives it is best to read his novels. There still being few authors of his kind that overshadow him and he has left his mark in many.

The Mad Dog and I

The notes indicated a limited man searching for the stars, and reaching almost all of them. Limits exceeded through furious perseverance. Absolute, anonymous justice, without promotions or glory. […] Wendell Bud White seen for the first time.

James Ellroy - LA Confidential (1990)

My Fall Into The Hells by Ellroy it happened at the beginning of this millennium. It was for LA Confidential, by Curtis Hanson (1997), which I did not see in the cinema at the time, but in 2000. From then on I have already lost count of how many times I have been there. But it was especially his fault:

Bud white

If the interpretation that a then unknown Russell Crowe did White not have meant the shot to the heart that literally broke me to date, right now I would not be typing these words. Nor would my soul have been totally devastated when I "saw" him in his original paper creation. Mr. Crowe is to blame for so many passions in my life. The most tremendous was lending her face and body to a literary character who tops the list of the ten that have touched me the most in literary depths.

Bud White is my epitome of the male literary character that can attract me the most and catch. That full of edges, cperfect contrast of brutality and violence against a tormented background and mixed feelings, which inspires the greatest of my fascinations. Because why deny it, I am a politically incorrect reader and writer. I can't help it. We all have our dark side and mine could not avoid dedicating a novel in tone fanfiction that goes around at the disposal of the staff.

But it is also ...

that after reading LA Confidential, all the others fell, followed and compulsively, because I was caught by that way of narrating Ellroy, that style so awkward at times, suffocating, submachine gun that shoots bullets at close range. A style that can overwhelm you, almost dizzy, overwhelm you with the complexity of its narration. Not suitable for all audiences, not even for all fans of the genre. And of course not suitable for delicate stomachs. To that are added the thousand plots and subplots, the thousand real and fictitious characters that interact in a tapestry with the epicenter in the most cinematic city so that those corrupt, false or superficial environments occur.

The 40s and their Black Dahlias, 50 and Almighty LAPD's Bloody Christmas with his legendary boss, William H. Parker. The 60s and the same aura of holiness and corruption of JFK. The FBI of EJ Hoover, the tycoon Howard Hughes, mobsters Sam Giancana, Mickey Cohen, Santo Trafficante or Jack Dragna. El Golden hollywood And full of scandals, the senator's blacklists McCarthy, the missile crisis, the secret missions in Cuba of CIA mercenaries ... The best of the worst of the North American XNUMXth century told over and over again in an obsessive fixation on its story, such as Ellroy's.

And they are also ...

the detective Fritz brown, the police officers Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, Sargeant Lloyd Hopkinsthe fearsome Pete bondurant, the diabolical Captain Dudley Smith, the agent Dwight holly, Red Queen, the divine Veronica lake in the gaze of the prostitute Lynn bracken, the heinous highway assassin. And so many more, because there are thousands of great characters created by this enormous literary dog ​​from a city full of fallen angels.

But above all, that if one prides himself on being a black genre reader, Ellroy is one of the essentials. You can start with the more classical structure and development, such as the first. The Sergeant Hopkins trilogy is not a bad start. But also, of course, The Black Dahlia. And of course the LA Quartet The titles more, let's say, uncomfortable or difficult, for me: The killer of the road o Six of the greats.

His novels

• Requiem for Brown. There are Film adaptation 1998 starring Michael Rooker.
• Clandestine
• The killer of the road
• Nights in hollywood 
• Wave of crimes
• Destination: the morgue
• Crazy about donna

Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy

1. Blood on the moon
2. Because of the night
3. Suicide hill

Los Angeles Quartet

1. The Black Dahlia. Brian De Palma he adapted it to the cinema in 2006.
2. The great desert
3. LA Confidential
4. White jazz

America Trilogy

1. America
2. Six of the greats
3. Vagrant blood

Second Los Angeles Quartet

1. Perfidia
2. This Storm (COMING SOON)