Memoir explores real-life crime

To be a writer, you need to write about what you know. But what happens when all you know is crime, death and unresolved investigations?

You become a crime novelist, of course. James Ellroy is the author of 13 books, including "L.A. Confidential," recently released in a film adaptation starring Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito. Taking place over eight years of Los Angeles history, "L.A. Confidential" tells the story of police department scandal in the 1950s as seen through the eyes of three members of the LAPD.

Ellroy has roots in crime investigation established years before any of his novels were published. Ellroy's memoir, "My Dark Places," recently published in paperback, is the account of his life and his personal experience with crime.

Ellroy was 10 years old when his mother was raped and murdered. He had spent the weekend with his father, and received the news stoically.

Author James Ellroy confronts his past in the memoir "My Dark Places."

"When my mother was murdered in June of '58," Ellroy explained to The Michigan Daily, "I hated her, I lusted after her, I was very much my father's son, I was in his sway completely. He brainwashed me against my mother and at the time of her death my greatest desire, since my parents were divorced, was to live with my father exclusively. And on June 22, 1958, that wish came true."

It was years before Ellroy turned back to face that incident. He went to live with his father, where he was left to take care of himself, and immersed himself in the fantasy world of true crime stories. He neglected school and the simple childhood social life in exchange for dreams of dead women and grotesque crimes. Eventually, he dropped out of school altogether.

"I drank, I used drugs, I broke into houses, I sniffed women's undergarments, I did county jail time in my late teens and 20s, I slept in parks, I stole anything that wasn't nailed down ... I got sober when I was 29 and started writing books."

And in 1994, he decided to make one of those crime books nonfiction. With the help of homicide detective Bill Stoner, Ellroy went back into his mother's file to uncover her past and, essentially, uncover his own.

"When I opened the first page of her crime report," said Ellroy, "I realized ... this isn't over. I had understood her death intellectually, but now it was as if a little gear clicked and I could understand it fully for the first time. I couldn't afford to take two years off and play homicide detective. There had to be a book in it ... The killer was irrelevant; this was all about the search for her."

Ellroy spent 18 months reinvestigating his mother's death 36 years before. As he phrased it, "it's been a wild ride, this ride toward confronting (my) mother." Throughout the research and writing process of "My Dark Places," however, he never found the dark milieu morbid or depressing. "And (this wild ride) continues. She continues to inhabit a large part of my thoughts. I am insatiably curious about her life. I'm convinced that the more publicity my book gets, the more I will learn about her. And I want that information."

Is Ellroy obsessive? Yes, and he readily admits it. His obsession, he asserted, blunted the horror that he would have felt as a child, and it made him a more effective novelist. However, when asked if he ever thinks hypothetically about a life with a different childhood, he recognized himself as an "efficacy-minded guy" and denied fantasizing.

"This is the way it's all played out, and I can't bring my mother back," Ellroy said. "I'm pleased with the way things are. I don't have any regrets; I think that you regret the things you didn't do, not the things you did."

And with that straightforward attitude, Ellroy has nothing to regret at this point in his life. He now lives in Kansas City, Mo., with his wife, and next plans to write a sequel to "American Tabloid," Time Magazine's 1995 novel of the year. He has the basis of a major motion picture to his credit and is in the process of becoming one of the greatest crime writers of the century.

"I was a happy man before I started writing "My Dark Places," Ellroy said, "and I'm a happier man now. I never felt I was a victim ... I have a great life."

10-02-97