On digital publishing, historical fiction, and why he will never write books set in the present
By J.M. | NEW YORK
JAMES ELLROY is the author of 13 novels, each grander in scale than the last. Perhaps best known for “L.A. Confidential” and “The Black Dahlia”, both of which were adapted to film, Mr Ellroy writes books that are often part of a short series and almost always door-stoppers. But his latest work, “Shakedown”, is a dramatic departure: it is a slim, one-volume, digital-only novella.
“Shakedown” is the story of Fred Otash, a real-life Hollywood private detective whose wiretapping on behalf of Confidential magazine in the 1950s make News International’s recent shenanigans seem tame in comparison. The book is set in purgatory, where Otash attempts to write himself into heaven by using Mr Ellroy as a ghost-writer.
Mr Ellroy spoke to The Economist about digital publishing, the blurry line between history and fiction, and why he will never write books set in the present.
What made you decide to go online?
I have a very good friend there [at Byliner, the publisher], Amy Lloyd. She explained to me that novella-length fiction was difficult to publish. I’m computer illiterate myself. I’ve never used a computer. Amy explained that it was low overhead for them to publish, that I could see significant royalties in a few months time, and that she was entirely flexible in length. Hence “Shakedown”, which is 78 manuscript pages.
“Shakedown” is a departure from your usual work. Did you make a conscious decision to move away from genre and toward a more character-driven story?
I don’t believe that drama is exclusively character-driven or plot-driven. You can have both of those elements in abundance, and I think that everything I’ve written points that out. I have written several short stories and novellas in “scandal language”, the first-person alliterative style that I employed in “Shakedown”, but this is a story that takes a real-life character, Fred Otash, who I did know in his waning days, who charged the genitals of scandal rag journalism. So even though I had used that [language] in my book “Destination: Morgue” and in three novellas I had written for GQ, this is the ultimate expression of it.
Where does “scandal language” come from?
I made it all up. This is entirely original to me. Yes, I read the scandal magazines as a young kid. My dad always had a dozen of them. And more importantly I love alliteration, I love Yiddish, I love racial invective, I love profanity, black hipster patois, I love all that. And I love the cadence of it, and I love using its shock value, for its ability to create humour. I wanted to write a novella that was outrageous, that celebrated good old-fashioned American ambition and rapacity.
How do you find a form to fit your stories?
I know it. I understand form. I live a very contained uncluttered existence. My new house is elegantly furnished and not cluttered. I do not trouble myself with popular culture. I don’t read. I spend a lot of time alone, thinking. And when a story comes to me, I feel the contours of it. I feel the frame of my interior consciousness expand around the various elements of the story, the characters, and then it contracts as the story becomes more coherent. That is what happened with this story.
Do you ever reach for an external source for any of this experimentation?
The greatest sources of inspiration for me are two things. One is classical music from Beethoven through the 20th century. I like being alone with it. It works on me. I think that is the core inspiration for my big novels. More than reading other writers, that is where the scope of my novels comes from.
Then there is yearning. I lie in the dark; quite often I have conversations with women who aren’t in the room with me, lately, chiefly, the woman across the street. Wanting what I can’t have leads me to create large-scale art in compensation. I have frequently engaged in a chaotic outer life and I restore order over all to my life by imposing rigid order to my internal life. I live internally quite a good deal. I’m comfortable that way more than not. And it all comes out of that.
Where do you draw the line between history and fiction in historical fiction?
I never say. I don’t want to tell people that this is real and I made this up. I am trying for a semblance of truth. If indeed the books read seamlessly, if you accept the outrageous tone of "Shakedown", then you will believe that Katharine Hepburn had a thing with Rin-Tin-Tin. You will believe all the outrageous accusations and all of Fred Otash’s descriptions of aberrant celebrity behaviour 50-odd years ago.
What do you think would happen if you opened yourself up to contemporary culture and wrote about today?
It’s unthinkable to me. And since I don’t want to write about the world today, I don’t think much about it. I am just that mentally disciplined.
