'American Tabloid' by James Ellroy

By: Terry Cornell

Hollywood celebrities, industrial magnates, rogue government agents, and a die-hard political machine. No, I’m not talking about the 2008 Presidential campaign…or am I?

American Tabloid (1995) is the first of James Ellroy’s American Underworld Trilogy. The story begins on November 22, 1958 and interweaves the exploits of three fictional law enforcement agents with factual people and historic events, culminating in John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Not only does Ellroy create complex fictional protagonists, he magically breathes life into J. Edgar Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa, Howard Hughes, and others. He seems to know what only a personal therapist could, including the not-so-gallant attributes of some of America’s most revered leaders.

Those familiar with Ellroy’s style in his traditional, hardboiled crime fiction will find more of the same here. Although this book is lengthy, it’s broken into chapters from each protagonist’s point of view.

Debonair Kemper Boyd is Hoover’s FBI point-man keeping tabs on the Kennedys. Worshipping money and power, he finds himself working for the FBI, Robert Kennedy, the CIA, and the mob. Ward Littell, ex-Jesuit seminarian and former Boyd protégé, is an idealistic FBI man who shares Bobby Kennedy’s hatred of organized crime, but he learns that, in this world, allegiances shift like the wind. Pete Bondurant is a former L.A. County Sheriff sacked for beating a prisoner to death. He becomes a Howard Hughes fixer, one of Jimmy Hoffa’s hired guns and, through ties with Kemper Boyd, trainer of cadres of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and assorted redneck mercenaries.

The second novel in the series, The Cold Six Thousand (2001), starts with JFK’s death and concludes with the assassinations of RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blood’s a Rover will complete the series and is tentatively scheduled for release in 2009. The story will span 1968 through 1973, Vietnam, and the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

While we all know the ending of American Tabloid, it’s the unanswered questions and whirlwind involvement of our protagonists that keep us reading. It was challenging separating Ellroy’s fiction from fact, but I developed a better understanding of political history, including why so many groups and individuals wanted JFK gone. I anticipate the journey through The Cold Six Thousand and the release of Blood’s a Rover. Each book should stand strong alone; James Ellroy nails the historical/political thriller genre.