James Ellroy looking out the window of his office in Los Angeles, one day, over two and a half years ago when he was struck by “the image of young Americans of Japanese ancestry, with sad eyes, taken to an internment camp. ”
The picture is not entirely invented, is part of the darkest History of the United States, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor , and was the spark that pushed the author of “ LA Confidential “or” The Black Dahlia “to embark on the prequel to the famous quartet from Los Angeles, she says in an interview.
Violence, racism, corruption, betrayal. All ingredients of the novels of “demon dog” of black American literature again present in “ Perfidia “, the first volume of what will be a new quartet, set in his hometown during the World War II , between 1941 and August 1945.
“I’m not a crime novelist, I am a historical novelist and always have been. They call thriller, but wrong,” says the writer, who has no qualms about openly show their ambition and thirst for great stories.
“I despise how easy, minimalism, small works of art. I like the novels of many pages -’Perfidia ‘has more than 700 to the great symphonies of Bruckner or Mahler and I’m obsessed with perfection,” he says.
“Perfidia” which takes its name from bolero immortalized Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca” rescues characters who appeared in “The Black Dahlia” cinema-carried by Brian de Palma-and in other novels of the original quartet, but Also in the trilogy “Underworld”, which mixes fiction and political reality of the United States between 1958 and 1972.
“My intention is to create a continuous fictional story of my city and my country, between 1941 and 1972,” says the author.
The action in this novel, now published in Spanish Random House , runs for 23 days in December 1941. The first day, a Japanese family, Watanabes, is found murdered in her room in the middle of a bloodbath. Second, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
The interest in the past, especially the decades of the 40s and 50s, are a constant in the career of Ellroy, which debuted last thirty, after a period of street life, less crime and alcoholism, marked by the unsolved murder his mother when he was a child something which already talked to ‘My dark corners’ (1996) -.
“I live in the past, whenever I’ve done since I was a kid. I live in the era before my birth, and I live in my imagination. I have never used a computer, I have no phone, just go to the movies and I watch TV . I like to sit in the dark and imagine stories, “he explains.
“‘Perfidia’ has the power of that during the two and a half years I spent writing it, I have lived in 1941 and specifically at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor,” he adds.
Ellroy taken with ironic distance questions about this dark period of his life, between the 60s and 70s, many reviews and interviews highlighted as an essential part of his forge in the art.
“That has not taught me anything about writing. Yes, I used to break into houses and stealing women’s underwear, but that just adds a few hours of my life. Against that, I spent many, many days, 10 hours a day locked a reading library “sums.
The first image of “Perfidia” was to those Japanese melancholy in the street, but sometimes inspiration can come from a photograph.
“I remember a picture in Life magazine of a brunette woman, about 30 years, it was the month of victory over Japan, August 1945. She greets a truck American soldiers advancing along the Boulevard in Los Angeles. I thought this woman daily for 50 years. ”
As for your writing style, short, sharp and urgent sentences, that the finding did with “LA Confidential” when its editor was forced to remove 150 pages.
“With this book I modified my style, I think it’s sober, elegant, edgy and fun. I love the American language in all its forms, in particular, most vulgar aspects. I love the racist invective, I love Yiddish, alliteration. Say you know how things should sound for maximum impact. That’s what I look for. ”
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