James Ellroy Biography

Fast Facts

• When he was 10 years old, his mother was killed in an unsolved homicide, an event that shaped the rest of his life and provided much of the inspiration for his writing style
• Is a renowned author of crime-fiction and neo-noir novels, known for unique, short sentence structure and playful use of slang and syntax, as well as partly basing many of his stories on real-life historical events such as the assassination of JFK
• Best known for writing the original novels from which the films "The Black Dahlia" and "L․A․ Confidential" were adapted
• Often focuses on the theme of lacking closure in his stories
• Originally employing a normal sentence structure, he evolved towards his now-signature writing style not on purpose, but instead after his editor asked him to drastically reduce the size of his novel "White Jazz․"
• Is known for his highly enigmatic and contradictory public persona, offering opinions that often differ from his own, previous interviews