James Ellroy: Writing So Women Will Love Him?

View the entire video at: http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/
Writer James Ellroy chats with his girlfriend, writer Erika Schickel, at Zócalo about why he writes, how he has changed, and the women in his life.

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• zocalo
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• james ellroy
• Erika schickel
• bloods a rover
• hilliker curse
• fiction
• literature
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• noir
• history

[Fremglerk]

It's a false value learned from Star Search to equate humility with art. The measure of a novelist's worth is the value of their books alone. Judging the novel by the attractiveness of the writer's personality always shows the *reader's* vanity, never the writer's.

That said, Ellroy's just having a good time with his campy persona. He continues to write the most symphonic noir in the history of the genre. That's what's important, politics and personalities aside.

[GavDuggan1983]

@Foloman1 Its part of his personality, its what makes him so great.

[LondonPride25]

@Foloman1 I don't know you but I have the feeling you wouldn't say that if you'd ever written anything yourself. It's always possible to not take yourself seriously but it's impossible not to take your work seriously. Unless you're a hack. And the white knight of the far right is anything but a dillettante.

[Foloman1]

He may be a good writer but he is so up his own arse.

[nycic]

Puke.

[ElmoreLeopard]

Saw him being interviewed at Cheltenham Festival of Literature on Saturday. He was very funny and insightful and brilliantly odd.

[archer1949]

Wow, that teaser to the novel he is working on is intriguing.

[pantalaemon]

he still enters readings with

hello peepers prowlers pederasts pantysniffers punks and pimps, i am james ellroy the demondog, and the slick trick with the demondick. so no, he's not too calm.

[wedanceatnoodles]

He has calmed down so much! and his voice is so deep.

[ROCKYMARCIANOXX0]

I can't wait for the new memoir to come out, 'My dark places' was fantastic.