There's no chance of me giving away a spoiler.After 630 pages, I have no idea what the hell happened.I knew it would be a labour of hate. I have read the other two and probably enjoyed them more, even if they were a struggle. This one seemed to lose any semblance of plot and zero characterisation at all.Who are these people?Says more about the author than the story - who obviously has a problem with people soiling themselves. It happened so often. Every event was met by a messy pant explosion.I cannot deny there is something that drives you on. Possibly the hep cat language. Its definitely not the story.So delighted to pop this back through the library letter box. On to something better, I hope. I'm not sure if I should give this three stars or four? It's the first book by James Ellroy that I have read. It's full of gruesome violence and cynicism and horrible things happening to horrible people. At the same time, I feel like it was good for me to read something that's so different from the sanitized version of history you get in school - I'm always hearing about how things used to be so much worse, but this really showed me what that meant. However - although there's pretty constant racism and misogyny, I really felt that it was necessary because it was a part of the characters and their world. I didn't feel that it was an author covertly expressing and glamorizing his own views, because, as I already said, mostly these are just really terrible, immoral people (regardless of ethnicity, race, nationality, etc). The plot was very intricate, and I almost didn't like how everything was explained so neatly at the end, but, at the same time, I was glad to have things made clear and loose ends tied up. I definitely do not regret the time I gave to this book, but I doubt that I would ever want to return to it and re-read it.
What do You think about Il Sangue è Randagio (2010)?
It's not his best book, but the recreation of the American period it's amazing.
—aashna
Awesome. Marsh Bowen is one of my new favorite literary characters.
—superman21
A wacked out end to the trilogy. Voodoo chemistry.
—bayisacat
Did not like and couldn't finish.
—jdfldskajflksjdf