Love Me Fierce In Danger: The Life of James Ellroy

Product Information

This is a biography that should appeal to those who simply love biographies as well as those interested in Ellroy's work. Those interested in literary history will find a lot here to think about as well. Powell introduced his favorite Ellroy novels and book series offering detailed accounts related to his writing styles of combining fictional characterization with real life events, and his technique of limiting dialogue to reduce the manuscript content. If a name was dropped, a credible story followed—also included were easy to follow timelines, cultural events, trips abroad, literary agents, famous editors, celebrities and other insiders in the publishing and film industries. Ellroy generously donated his papers to the University of South Carolina (1999) he visits on occasion to lecture and update the archive.

The beginning is very harrowing and very frank and honest which I truly applaud it for. This is warts and all and does not shy away from some very difficult subject matter that is his life but as we move forward to his writing career we are probably getting the most in-depth character study about the man and his gift to the world.

he sees as inimical to Ellroy’s work: “The more friction and unresolvable conflict that existed in his personal life, the more visceral his art became.” This was a very interesting, although also somewhat off-putting, biography. It is incredibly detailed, not only about Ellroy's life, but also about each of his major books, with quite lengthy descriptions of the plots of each. It was a difficult read in the sense that Ellroy is a difficult personality (both to capture in words and to like or warm to), as opposed to difficult because of the writing style, which is quite engaging, particularly given some of the subject matter. The modern classic of space opera that began with Children of Time continues in this extraordinary novel of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Powell's biography is wonderful, a must-read. . . . It is a testament to him and to his subject.”— Hedgehog Review

Ellroy merges historical and literary sources with a tabloid sensibility,” writes Powell of Ellroy’s celebrated Underworld Trilogy, which began with American Tabloid (1995). In adopting more or less the same approach, Love Me Fierce in Danger delivers a biography that is entirely in keeping with a life that has been “mythologised, demythologised, and re-mythologised in the public eye, not least by the author himself”. Declan BurkeFollowing the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’ My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Bloomsbury Academic for an advanced copy of this biography on one of the outstanding and outlandish crime writers of the 20th Century. Here is 'the skinny' (as the subject himself might put it) on one of the most charismatic and complex crime writers on the planet, affording insights into both the man and his craft. It's every bit as gripping and twisted as a James Ellroy novel. Dig it, cats.