>> funding for "overheard" with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community, experienced, respected, and tested. also, by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy, and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation, and viewers like you. thank you. >> i'm evan smith, he's one of the most stylish and accomplished american novelists of my lifetime and yours, the award winning best selling author of "the black dahlia", "l.a. confidential", , "american tabloid", "the cold six thousand", among other amazing books. he's james ellroy. this is "overheard".

>> actually there are not two sides to every issue. >> so i guess we can't fire him now. >> i guess we can't fire him now. [ laughter ] >> the night that i win the emmy. >> being on the supreme court was an improbable dream. >> it's hard work, and it's controversial. >> without information there is no freedom and it's journalists who provide that information. >> window rolls down, and this guy says, hey, it goes to 11. [ laughter ] [ music playing ] >> james ellroy, welcome. >> good to be here. >> nice to see you again. >> one more time. >> congratulations on the book, it's a great book. do you want to -- touch it and stroke it? [ laughter ] i think this is starting well. i'm curious to know why this particular book, i don't have to ever ask you why l.a. >> right. >> we'll talk about l.a. in a little bit, why this book set as it is in world war ii and why this topic for this novel. >> in profidia, and in the

second dahlia quartet, which takes characters from my initial l.a. quartet, and places them -- >> rolls them forward. >> yes, backward. >> backward, typically, right. >> to world war ii, and they were much younger people. in world war ii, i have finally found an event big enough to say to my literal megalo mania i don't know why it's taken me this long. the stakes were high. >> yeah, they were. >> this is a historical romance, it's about big people, big ideas, big allegiances, big politics, anti minimalist, anti nilist, it's a devout novel. >> it's romantic, it has all the things you said, but it's a crime novel, it's the kind of thing that you produced but you produced it differently than most people produce crime, it's not through the front door crime novel, it's about so many other

things. >> in the initial l.a. quartet, i merged the crime novel and the historical novel in the underworld u.s.a. trilogy, the crime novel, the historical novel and the political novel, this book is a historical romance, it's that big. >> right. how much work do you do as an author on a book like this set in a period to be sure that have you the details of the period right? >> evan, i make it up. [ laughter ] >> now, i -- i knew that, but i wanted to ask the question in a serious way to treat you with the respect that you deserve. >> yes. >> there's some facts you cannot get around. >> yes, yeah. >> the might of japan descended 1941. >> undeniable. >> it sparked the grave injustice of the japanese internment here in america. we know that. beyond that, what i do in my books is create the secret human infrastructure of large public

events. as far as research goes, what i'm looking for is narrative wiggle room, for example, -- >> right. >> when i read my researcher's briefs on december 1941. >> yeah. >> i saw that the first month of the roundups of the allegedly subversive japanese were haphazardly implemented. >> yep. >> and this gave me all the fictional latitude. >> right. >> that i needed to make it up. >> isn't the point of historical fiction that it's based loosely on history. >> yes. >> but because it's fiction, the requirement to be faithful to specific facts in sequence or specific individuals in the roles they played is kind of out the window, you really have as much latitude as you could possibly want. >> when i was eight years old, i still believed, this is 1956. >> right. >> that world war ii was going on. it was just that pervasively in the public consciousness. i said something that alerted my mother to this misconception, and she said, oh, no, the war

ended three years before you were born. >> yeah. >> i didn't believe her then, and i don't believe her now. [ laughter ] >> yeah. >> i'm a guy who lives history. >> you're what we would call a world war ii truther. >> right. >> the idea that the war ended -- >> i'm not a denier. >> there's a very important distinction. you alluded to the fact that you rolled characters backward. this is not a totally never-seen convention, some people do this, and in fact episodic television is a little bit like the kinds of novels that you write where you have characters that cross over and all of that, but obviously it's not something that everybody does. what are we to make of that as readers? is it a way to anchor us to understand that this is like those, is that the tether? >> i'm trying to create a seamless story and unit the previous seven books with four more, and those 11 books in

their aggregation will comprise my fictional history of l.a., my city, america, our country, between 1941 and 1972. >> this is a deliberate strategy. >> yeah, it's a grand design. >> was it one you had back at the beginning of the l.a. quartet. you called it a quartet, you assumed four books. >> right. >> on the other hand, you clearly have a longer vision out from those four books. >> no. i had a revelation. i had a dream. >> when did you have the dream. >> i had a dream today. >> when did you have the revelation -- >> i was looking out my southern office window on a cold winter night wondering why i didn't have a girlfriend, and it came to me in a flash, not why i didn't have a girlfriend, or why women kept divorcing me, but here is what i saw. forelorn looking japanese folks, soldiers with tommy guns up

front, the vehicle is chugging up a snow-capped mountain in the sierras, heading for the internment camp. in a heart beat i had it. >> that was your vision. >> yes. characters from the first two bodies of work in l.a. during world war ii as much younger people. the first novel to be called profidia, a 700 page novel in real time, set the month of the pearl harbor bombings, the murder or ritual suicide of a japanese family in l.a. hours before the pearl pearl harbor a. >> in fact what you said about the story being told in real time is literally the case, it's 23 -- the time frame of the book is 23 days. >> it was around around the clock time. >> right. to the fact that the point every single chapter is time stamped, date stamped, so it's literally told -- >> people were afraid to go to sleep. people were indulging marvelous

extracurricular love affairs,fas there's lots of booze. >> it's an ellroy book. >> do you know where we could be right now if it were december 1941. >> tell. >> we could be in an all-night tile game in the opium den at kwan's chinese pa go did a in l.a. china town. >> this is one of those things that you made up or something that actually happened because it sounds great. [ laughter ] in the book we alluded to the fact that characters roll backwards from previous books, but you also have cops at least who were characters ripped from real life, you've written about actually people. >> yes. >> you basically intersperse actual people alongside fictional characters. >> the one question i never answer on this book is what's real and what's not, because i'm out to create. the secret human infrastructure of great public events, and a

seamless senilitude. >> may i say you're a scary dude? [ laughter ] i want to put that out there because -- you know, it's not like -- >> yeah. >> has it been the case in previous books either in the first quartet or the books that followed that you've followed the similar strategy approach? >> yeah, uh-huh. >> real-life characters put alongside. >> they rubbed elbows and sometimes other body parts with the... >> it's an absolutely fascinating book. the thing that i always take away, to your point about your longer strategy, the thing i always take away from your books is that l.a. comes to life. >> l.a. comes to life. >> go home on probation. >> that's your philosophy of l.a. >> yeah. >> what's a canvas, what about l.a. seriously makes it such a great. >> i'm from there. if i were from moose fart,

montana or antelope ass, arkansas, i would write gigantic books about those towns. mom and dad hatched me in l.a. at the height of the film era. >> the era is as important as place. it's really more historical. >> i live in contemporary l.a. >> well, you do, except you don't, jump ahead to something i was going to ask you about earlier, you live without a television, you live without a computer. >> yeah. >> you're -- >> no cell phone. >> you're her medically sealed in different times. your disposition is entirely not contemporary. >> i live a brooding bay bay toafian -- beethoven life. i'm not being flip here.

i'm a yearner. where is she? who is she? what is america's destiny? why do people do what they do. >> big themes. >> big, big themes. >> right. >> this book is a broadside against minimalism, irony, and all things pickyunne in the culture. i drive to the store. everywhere you i go, there's a gigantic ad with blood sucking vampires. >> these days that's true. >> distopian end of the world hoo what. people transplanted to jupiter so rich people can inhabit planets, closer.

this quasi marxist vision made by movie studios looking to repath billion dollars profits. >> right. >> this is a good culture to deny. this is a good culture to time travel back. >> yeah. >> to another era. >> if that's the world we're living in now, why not go back to another time? >> yes. >> right. yeah. how connected are you to the contemporary world in another respect politically? i know that you have said on the one hand that you voted for president obama, that you had a negative reaction to president bush, is that true. >> no. >> did you not give an interview to rolling stone in which you said that. >> no, no, no. >> set me straight, because i read the words. >> i got to tell you something. i deny the world as it is. i was on this book tour. >> yeah. >> and i heard some people talking, and i had planned to tune in on the radio.

president roosevelt address about the war in europe. >> right. >> and oh contrary, the president somebody was saying was a guy named obama and there's a war in afghanistan. like my mother telling me that world war ii had ended three years before my birth, i'm not buying it, because as far as i'm concerned, fdr is the man. >> still the president. >> he's still the president. >> right. so then when you talk about -- when you talk to interviewers about your view of politics in the modern world -- >> chances are i'm -- >> you're making it up. [ laughter ] >> the ellroy persona, some of which i'm dining out on as we sit here. >> yeah. >> are you a character or are you real? and -- and does its matter? i mean i ask this sincerely, because i do get the sense that part of the ellroy mystique is

this persona, this personality which is very interesting and appealing and i think elevates a lot of the discussions of what's in the book, but i also don't feel like if i'm getting an act or the real thing. so you tell me. >> i understand that. and here is the deal. take a look at that book. >> yeah. >> it's a serious book. >> and at some point i'm like the pit bull staked into the front yard on the short leash which is the writing of that book. >> yeah. >> and then my publisher comes and they take some bolt cutters and they snap my lead. >> they let you off. >> yeah. >> and i'm out to have fun. >> yeah. >> i'm out to entertain the folks, have a blast, talk to you, come to the textbook fair, and dig on life. >> so it doesn't make a difference whether, you know, what's actually the case and what's not the case? >> i am just that serious and

just that fun-loving. >> yeah. >> is what it is. >> this is the real thing. >> yeah. >> and i'm waking up again, i woke up in toronto at 3 a.m. and i've taken two airplanes already today. i took a snooze down in the basement on one of those long couches there, and then one of your very, very nice people gave me a cup of coffee. i mean i'm flying high. >> yeah, that seems evidence to me. there's something cinematic about every one -- i think a lot of people think back very fondly on both the book l.a. confidential and the film. a film that you really had nothing materially to do with. to me i know were a big fan of that film, right? it may be the very best example of a terrific book made into a terrific film. do you set out thinking that these books may have a life

beyond the page? >> no, and one should not do that. you're not opposed necessarily to these books having a life beyond. >> i'll put it this way. >> yeah. >> money is the gift that no one ever returns. the size in hollywood terms, large, always fits, if someone wants to option this, yes. >> do you have any connection to the contemporary culture in the sense of going to the movies or doing anything that might give you a perspective on how the rest of the world creatively is doing? >> i watch -- i have a buddy, he's an emergency room doctor. on friday nights, i go to his place, i sit down, and we want crime serialized television shows. >> right. why don't you have a television yourself. >> sounds to me you're not opposed to watching television, you just don't own un. >> you would rather do that? >> so this is actually as it

were for those kinds of shows. whether it's the mini series as series like true detective, or the whole law and order cannon or the csi cannon, the world likes that kind of procedural program. i imagined i would not get much on you from that, i assumed no television, no viewing of those things, but you do watch those things. >> the best that i've ever seen is the original dainish version of the killing. and it's 20 episodes, and they solve crime. >> yeah. >> in cope copenhagan. >> you're patient enough to get through 20 to get the solution to one crime. >> you go over to your buddy's place, you can watch four or five episodes in a night and be home by mid night. >> i'm a happy guy, i have the

happy gene. >> you seem to have that. >> i came to work. >> do you read -- i guess in fact i know that -- okay, legend is that, you know, joseph wambaugh was a book you read, generally speaking you don't read a whole lot of. >> i'll tell you a great novel. >> he's a terrific novellest. >> he has a book coming out next year called finale which is about the concluding years of reagan's presidency. >> >> that's the line, but i wonder substantively is the issue that by reading other people's work it might somehow influence your own. >> no. >> that's not -- >> there are -- i've got to sleep, i've got to eat, get some exercise, go to the store, brood. i got to brood.

>> it is literally the brooding time is valuable to you. >> i've got to brood, i've got to yearn. >> can you tell us anything about the next few books? >> yes. profidia concludes on the 29th of december. the new book begins on new year's eve, 41, into 42, and covers all the way through the following summer. >> and do you have a name for that next book. >> not yet. >> and then the next two books, do you have them sketched out. >> i've got them up here, they're percolating as we speak, and the series will end in l.a. on vj day august 1945. >> there is an end that concludes right there. >> yes. >> how much of these books is sketched out by you in advance. you story board out the story, you're sort of rigid and deciding in advance of it ising down to write this is how i do it. >> the outline was 700 typed

pages. >> 700 typed? >> yes. >> and by typed again, you have no computer you mean literally. >> i have a woman who types for me. >> okay. that stated, when you have a super structure that dense where a plot, historical, the character architects are inex tricksically linked that densely, it allows you to live in the individual scenes and extrapolate within them, and improvise and pack in the detail, and that's what gives the book their extreme formal quality on the one hand and their improvised ad-lib quality on the other. it's the best way to work. >> yeah. >> how much revision do you do along the way. >> in 50 page blocks, i go back and rewrite from scratch. >> is that right, really? >> i take existing sentences and i have little karates and little arrows, black i think for the original text, red ink, then i

go out in the margins. >> it's an actual process. i assume this is a process you followed for some time. >> yes. >> how long did it take to write this book. >> two and a half years. >> do you quarrel with those people who produce on a more regular basis that they're being too prolific and somehow undermining their ability to be excellent at what they do. you hear about people that put out a new book every year, for months, something like that. >> for attribution i don't criticize the other author, i've never reviewed a book because i'm extremely selective. i'm a picky eater, and i don't want to hurt anybody. so why -- >> but do you generally have a point of view about that sort of thing? >> yeah, i do. come to work. work hard, be diligent and meticulous in the extreme. >> yeah. >> don't go to the movies. put down that cell phone. do not boot up that internet

pornography. stay chained to your desk. >> yeah. >> and work -- >> those are your rules for living. >> those are my can villistic rules for living. >> in a couple of minutes we have left, how did you become this guy? what was it -- what was the formative moment, or what was the moments that made you become someone who wanted to produce this kind of work? did you know back then? >> i loved the novel. >> yeah. >> the beginning with age -- >> 8. >> what was the first grade novel you read at age 8. >> kids stories. all those books. shang hiked in a gin mill in san francisco in 1892, wakes up in the hole of a pirate ship enslaved. i wanted the big canvas. i wanted the big stakes. i wanted to write the big book. >> yeah. >> and then lo and behold, i was able to do it.

god has been very kind to me. >> but what was -- you left out a portion in between -- >> i drank, i used drugs, that part? >> well -- >> went to jail. >> that's a good part. the point from which you had the sense of wanting to do it until you knew you could do it. >> i didn't know i could do it. >> first book was in -- >> '81. >> a modest private eye book and i've been upping the ante ever since. >> it was also the general ray, an overused word. >> i love current fiction, i love historical fiction. >> even the kennedy assassination book that you did is in essence -- >> you can call it crime fiction. it doesn't matter. >> it's essentially a piece. >> yeah, right. >> what would you like to be doing after you get done with this quartet if you look ahead to something. >> a trilogy. i have a trilogy in mind. >> go ahead, tell us about --

>> i'm thinking of the post war era again. >> right. >> so this book, call it a prequel to the last two big series. first big, second l.a. quartet. if i go on and do a trilogy after this quartet is complete, and i decide to reprise characters from the first three bodies of work. i'm dealing here with preceding action. >> right. >> i would be dealing then with concurrent action. >> you're going to go all star wars on us it sounds like here. you lose track of what came before what. >> i would have to make a month by month chart from 1946, when "the black dahlia" begins to 1958 when white jazz concludes. >> no small feat. >> thank you. >> okay.

well, i was going to say, you know, you're going to have to keep up with it, it's so interesting. you are more interesting at your worst moment than most people are at their best. >> i can't -- listen, i came to work. are you here to sell books and greet the people in texas or are you here to shrink off and in the words of great don jerk off and drink tasty shakes. that's from miss book libra. >> i think a perfect place to end also. >> yeah. don't we get questions from the audience. >> yeah, we'll get questions. thank you, again. great pleasure. >> thank you. >> we'd love to have you join us in the studio, visit our website at klru.org/"overheard" to find invitations to interviews, q and a's with our audience and guests and an archive of past evidence. >> the practice requires all the

concentration that i can muster in the moment but i never think hypothetically as far as locale goes, my parents did hatch me in a cool locale. >> funding is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within the community and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community, experienced, respected, and tested. also by hillco partners, texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care business unit hillco health and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you. this is rainwater .. collected

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