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    American Tabloid
    American Tabloid
    American Tabloid
    Audiobook18 hours

    American Tabloid

    Written by James Ellroy

    Narrated by Christopher Lane

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK’s presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination—in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C....

    Where the CIA, the Mob, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Cuban political exiles, and various loose cannons conspire in a covert anarchy...

    Where the right drugs, the right amount of cash, the right murder, buys a moment of a man’s loyalty...

    Where three renegade law-enforcement officers—a former L.A. cop and two FBI agents—are shaping events with the virulence of their greed and hatred, riding full-blast shotgun into history....

    James Ellroy’s trademark nothing-spared rendering of reality, blistering language, and relentless narrative pace are here in electrifying abundance, put to work in a novel as shocking and daring as anything he’s written: a secret history that zeroes in on a time still shrouded in secrets and blows it wide open.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 29, 2015
    ISBN9781501276569
    American Tabloid

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    Reviews for American Tabloid

    4/5

    702 ratings18 reviews

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    • 5/5
      It's not even an hour ago it ran out. Now I'm twitching, sweaty--shaking all over.
      I need another fix.
      Real bad.
    • 3/5
      (this was a diversion, something to transport)

      Much of the GR community shares a united front on American Tabloid, comparing it to meth or serial lines of blow, Ellroy is credited with thousands of pages of plot stripped down to slide into a mere 600 page volume. There is a measure of truth in said consensus. Well some of the metaphors do work. It does often appear that an acetylene torch is applied to the reader's soul. Events do come tumbling into focus and then disappear in the span of a few pages. The historical significance trails afterward like a sonic boom. The novel's chief created characters ( as opposed to the historical personages that the author stacks to the rafters) all occupy the opaque underworld of the FBI and the Syndicates. The Mob and communist inspire night terrors. Affairs branch outward from there. No one can afford loyalty, we understand. A subplot involving the daughters of the G-men being friends is but a plot device, quickly discarded to no real effect. Many of the characters decide that they don’t hate sufficiently and question matters. I’m guessing a few readers came to the same conclusion.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It gets 4 out of 5 (it's really probably more if a 4.5) mainly because there is just so much going on and at times made my brain hurt. I love the pace, the way the fictional character mixed with real life ones. My favorite character was probably Ward Littell. I loved the whole, good guy goes rouge after feeling betrayed aspect of his character. I rarely read series books in order, but because I liked the first book so much, I'm jumping right into The Cold Six Thousand. I'm going to let my brain rest and process for a bit though.
    • 5/5
      This masterpiece brilliantly mixes fact and fiction to present a mosaic of America from the late 1950's until the assassination of JFK. Historical characters and facts covered include JFK's run for the presidency; his many affairs, including one with a Marilyn Monroe-like starlet; Bobby Kennedy's investigation of Teamster's Union boss Jimmy Hoffa; the CIA's botched planning and execution of the Bay of Pigs; Howard Hughes; Castro; J. Edgar Hoover; the Mafia in Chicago, Miami, L.A. and New Orleans; and much, much more.These events engulf the three primary fictional characters, all of whom are amoral, murderous and depraved individuals. Pete Bondurant is a hired gun for Jimmy Hoffa, as well a drug supplier to Howard Hughes, who becomes one of the CIA trainers for the Cubans who will execute the Bay of Pigs invasion. Kemper Boyd simultaneously works for the FBI, the CIA, Robert F. Kennedy, the Mafia, and pimps for JFK. He is loyal to no one. Ward Littel is a former straight-arrow FBI agent formerly obsessed with nabbing the mob (rather than chasing the "reds" J. Edgar was interested in pursuing). He ends up as the ace attorney for Mafioso boss Carlos Marcello. Be aware that the events in this book are extremely violent and brutal. The style in which this novel is written is truly unique, and takes some getting used to. It is written in short, staccato sentences, and the plot is presented as a series of vignettes. The language is idiomatic, full of slang and (to me) utterly authentic. This may only be a 4 1/2 star book, but I'm feeling generous and giving it 5 stars.5 starsThis was a reread for me. I first read it around the time it was originally published in 1995. I loved it then, as well. I reread it because after reading a review of the second novel in the trilogy of which this is the opening book (The Cold Six Thousand) I wanted to continue on with the trilogy, which I never did, I guess because the succeeding books weren't written at the time I read the first one
    • 5/5
      Wow. No way it all went down exactly like this, but it could have, anyway I think Ellroy's pretty close. There's so much detail here that it took a second reading just to get a good idea of what's going on. The first time through, I think I was focused on the Kennedy assassination stuff so much that I missed ninety percent of the story. And I had no idea that it was a trilogy... will definitely be moving on to The Cold Six Thousand now.
    • 5/5
      History class was never this exciting. Ellroy's AMERICAN TABLOID seduces you with bad news, spilling out the extortion, bribery, and killings that underlay the forces of history between 1958 and 1963.

      Through it all are three fixers trying to play all the parties involved: FBI, Mob, Justice Department, CIA, and more. There are few things more enjoyable than watching someone good at their job, and these three men are very fucking good at their jobs—except when they forget that they're tools of the powerful, to be used and discarded when out of control.

      The prose? Like uppers on uppers, hurtling forward with maximum velocity and minimum equivocation. It doesn't hurt that he gets to revel in the lurid details, both weaving together and ripping apart history with the glee of a good skank sheet. It's goddamn infectious, as you can probably tell.

      That style—and the subject matter—keep this from being properly understood in the maximalist tradition: think Pynchon, Gaddis, Delillo. Encompassing decades of American history and myth is an even grander aim than any of those chumps, and this is just installment one of three.

      Next up: THE COLD SIX THOUSAND and BLOOD'S A ROVER.
    • 3/5
      This is an extremely violent book. I'm quite tough, but I found the relentless descriptions of torture and murder really hard going. Ellroy writes well, and has created a plausible back story to the Kennedy assassination. The layers of corruption in American politics dip and weave around each other. Ellroy's use of language that would have been normal at the time was hard to read, given that I live in a time when racist, misogynist hate speech quite rightly is not acceptable. I'm not naive, I know such speech, such attitudes still exist, but the language has become shocking. As gripped as I was by the story, I found reading it exhausting, and it definitely affected my mood. Ellroy very skilfully makes you care about the hideously corrupt main characters. He makes you see that the shining knights of democracy aren't the paragons their PR says they are. Everything in the book is underpinned by filth and nastiness. Even though I enjoyed the book, I don't know that I will read any more of Ellroy's books. Not if they make me feel like I need to take a shower every couple of pages!
    • 4/5
      Excellent read. Very gripping rendition of the Kennedy years, the Mafia and FBI. It is fiction but very interesting take on the surrounding history.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to give this book another try; it's subject matter really interests me. It's just that the angry, brutal prose seems to me to be overly sensational and unnecessarily sadistic. Still, it's an engrossing read, with character growth and nice twists and turns to reach an end that history told you was coming.
    • 4/5
      Fantastic, complicated thriller interpreting historical events through the eyes of a hardboiled crime novelist. Fast-paced, complex, extremely violent, and (unfortunately) all-too-believable. Takes a lot of nerve to depict powerful families and people in this way. One warning: try to keep track of the characters and their connections right from the beginning. There are so many and the crosses and double-crosses are so numerous you may need a crib sheet!
    • 3/5
      Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that "American Tabloid" isn't a lot of fun. It's got gangsters and drug smugglers and revolutionaries and playboys and FBI agents and crazy millionaires and dancing girls. It's got blood and guts and sex and violence and betrayal and greed and double-dealing and politics and harebrained schemes and some very amusing period slang. It moves faster than a jacked-up sports car pushing towards sixth gear on a desolate stretch of Nevada highway. It's profane and chilling and shocking and scandalous, but I'm not sure it's a very good book. Let me explain. When Ellroy does fiction, he's adding gore, slick prose, and some amount of psychological depth to what lots of readers consider a fairly formulaic, disposable genre. It's a good gig, and Ellroy's very good at what he does. "American Tabloid," though, isn't borderline-literary pulp, it's pulpy, hard-boiled historical fiction, and switching genres really exposes Ellroy's shortcomings as a novelist. Everyone, fictional or otherwise, in "American Tabloid," is an Ellory character: a rampant id attached to an obsession and a pair of gonads. That's fine if you're just juicing up stock characters, but it goes less well when you're talking about historical figures that might have had more sides than one. It doesn't matter who Ellroy's writing about here, though: John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Sam Giancana, or one of a half-dozen FBI men, they all come off as horny, power-mad and thoroughly unscrupulous. Other writers have found real depth in some of these personages, but you'd hardly know it from reading "American Tabloid." I've always assumed that historical fiction tarts up the history it describes in the interest of a good story, but I'm thinking that real-deal history, would, in this case, would make Ellroy's schtick here seem pretty thin.Not that "American Tabloid" is all bad. Ellroy's decision to skewer John F. Kennedy, who has become something of a plaster saint, might be described as bold, and he seems to have done some good research on some less-known aspects of contemporary political history. There's some wild, and perhaps vaguely factual tales of the Cuban exile movement and a cynical take on Camelot and the civil rights movement. Even so, "American Tabloid" is essentially a who-really-killed-JFK book, and there's never been a happier hunting ground for obsessives, crackpots and conspiracy nuts than that one. I don't know how much of any of this he believes, but I'm not sure it matters: Ellroy would probably be better served discussing the intricate, stylish dealings of fictional cops and robbers. As it nears the end, the book seems to lose all sense of verisimilitude and the death toll hits Shakespearean, or perhaps Tarantino-an, levels. By the time I'd finished this one, I felt like I'd eaten three Thanksgiving dinners in a row and I'd had enough of Cuban psychopaths, speed-addled G-men, and J. Edgar Hoover for a little while. Oof! I'm beginning to suspect that Ellroy's stuff is basically catnip for adolescent males, romance novels for dudes who read "Bizarre." It's okay to read that stuff once in a while, but like all junk food, you want to make sure you get something else in your diet, too.
    • 5/5
      I've read AMERICAN TABLOID three times. It never disappoints. Bloody fantastic stuff. I'm going to re-read the follow up - the cold six thousand - having reminded myself of some of the stuff in AT. I'd forgotten how wonderfully Ward Littel reinvents himself during AT. You wanna read a great book then this is the one for you .... JFK, RFK, J Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Sam Giancanna etc. rub shoulders with some truly great fictional creations. Just read it.
    • 4/5
      Gritty (as expected), absorbing, and with an interesting interplay with Kennedy presidential history. Excellent read. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      This was a brilliantly conceived and written book. It is one of my favorite Ellroy books.
    • 5/5
      A magnificent book, really, and the best Ellroy I've read. He reaches into the seedy underbelly of America in the early sixties, leading up to the assassination of JFK, and presents an impressive account of how the mob, the CIA and everyone else was somehow involved. Very clever.
    • 5/5
      Warning: After reading almost anything by James Ellroy, you will be compelled to read EVERYTHING by James Ellroy
    • 5/5
      Ellroy's best, never equalled, not even by Ellroy himself. If you have a taste for crime, this book will spoil you. Few others are as entertaining and gritty as this one.
    • 5/5
      Brutally over-written but somehow perfect.