With some of the important and intriguing books out this week, it's beginning to look a lot like... no, no — I just can't say it...
Blood's a Rover
by James Ellroy
Blood's a Rover completes James Ellroy's Underworld U.S.A. trilogy, an historical recapitulation of American crime and social upheaval - Ellroy calls his series of novels "a study of politics as crime." The first book, American Tabloid, covered 1953 to 1958; the second, The Cold Six Thousand, spanned 1958 to 1963; and Blood's a Rover delves into the combustible years of 1963 to 1972.
But we’re not talking about the Summer of Love: Plots and counterplots. International conspiracy and conspiracy theories and theorists. The shooter on the grassy knoll. Hippies, Black Panthers, and the CIA. Castro. Papa Doc. Hip Nixon. Vampiric Howard Hughes. Paranoid Hoover. Dead Kennedys. "The late 1960s were a period for paranoia," Ellroy says. "It was a time for shifting allegiances, conspiracy theories, getting stoned, and looking for something else out there."
Ellroy impels us to look at this entertaining political noir – though he also calls it an historical romance — even if it means deciphering subplots about Wells Fargo heists that constitutes a kaleidoscopic catalyst, and characterizations that mix among the big names secondary figures such as Donald Crutchfield, an L.A. peeping Tom private eye, and Left-wing radical Karen Sifakis, out of Smith and Yale, striking and tough enough to transcend politics when it matters. Joan Rosen Klein is even more ardently left. And tougher. The daughter and granddaughter of Communists, she's prepared to die for her causes and will kill for them, too. Wayne Tedrow — ex-cop and heroin runner — is building a mob gambling mecca in the Dominican Republic and quickly becoming radicalized. And so the ripple effects undulate…
Article comments
1 - Bill Sherman
I'm wondering about the significance of Ellroy's title, which calls up the sequel to Harlan Ellison's post-Apocalyptic "A Boy and His Dog."
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
I don't know what Ellroy's intent was, but there's earlier ties in A.E. Houseman's "Reveille":
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad; when the journey's over
There'll be time enough for sleep.
3 - roger nowosielski
Wow, another one by Ellroy. And a possible connection with Harlan Ellison.
You've surely whetted my appetite. Thanks.
4 - roger nowosielski
I don't think Glenn Beck's book should be on the list, unless you're aiming at the intellectually-impaired.