Steven Godin's Reviews > American Tabloid

An absolute humdinger of a novel when it comes to American historical fiction. Ellroy takes a scalpel to the throat of late 50's/early 60s America - one of the most important in its history - and goes for jugular bigtime. The mob, the teamsters, the Kennedy's, the feds, the McClellan Committee, the CIA, undercover ops, Cuba and Castro and whole lot more are put under the microscope. With his terse sentenced stylistic prose, sharp and punchy dialogue, and characters that, while not particularly likeable - sleazy and unpleasant; brutal and womanizing; backstabbing and greedy; criminally connected and actively clandestine - were brilliantly portrayed of this era. Ellroy's world is tough and mean and doesn't know the meaning of ethical or fair. Even those trying to do good are hardly stand up model citizens. Some may have thoughts of Don DeLillo's Libra whilst reading - I personally didn't see it that way, but did get flashes of Scorsese's film The Irishman running through my mind; especially when it came to the Jimmy Hoffa angle. Dark, at times blistering intense and with a plot that thickens from single cream to clotted, I was pretty much mesmerized by the whole thing. It's a novel that made me feel exhausted without even moving. There was just so much to take in. I do like it when writers take real life figures and turn them into characters along side the fictional ones. I'd be amazed though if this novel went down a treat with most women that read it.