Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-Print: Available – (Bib info from Amazon website) COPYRIGHT: Avon Books 1/1/1981, Vintage Books 2021; ISBN-13: 978-0-593-31221-6; PUBLISHER: Avon Books; Vintage Books; LENGTH: 256 pgs.
-Digital: (Bib info from Amazon website) COPYRIGHT: Vintage (February 16, 2021) ([Kindle]; PUBLISHER: Vintage; FILE 1743 KB
*Audio: (Info from Libby) COPYRIGHT: 4-June-2012; PUBLISHER: Books on Tape; DURATION: approx. 9 hours; Unabridged (LAPL MP3)
-Feature Film or tv: 1998 Feature Film starring Michael Rooker, Selma Blair, Kevin Corrigan.

SERIES: Mysterious Press-Highbridge Audio Classics

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
-Fritz Brown -Protagonist; Former LA Police; Private Investigtor
-Cal Myers – Car salesman
-Freddy (Fat Dog) Baker - Client
-Jane Baker – Freddy’s sister
-Sol Kupferman – Jane’s housemate

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-Selection: Don (husband) and I attended a panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (4/22/2023, USC) consisting of Michael Connelly and James Ellroy. We were there to listen to Michael Connelly, not realizing his role was as interviewer. We were surprised at what we judged to be a turn of events, with the focus on Mr. Ellroy and his receipt the previous evening at this event of the "Robert Kirsch Award" for lifetime achievement; "an award presented to writers whose focal point centers in on the American West" (Variety website).
As we listened, we eventually learned that this fellow had written the “Black Dahlia” and other novels with equally recognizable titles. Our desire to discover another good author was piqued, all-be-it, warry.
This fellow is quite a character, unashamed of vulgar gestures to demonstrate, rather than say, that someone is full of themselves, and full of raunchy, sometimes poetically strung, profanity. He seems to be someone who enjoys getting a rise out of folks.
We were surprised to discover that, much of the audience was actually there for this author so we decided we should try at least one novel. I’m a stickler for starting at the beginning. It’s probably unfortunate, being that an author’s first novel isn’t always their best. In fact, Don had read an article that recommended a particular order, starting with the "Black Danube", and stating that the 7 preceding novels werenot much more than the author developing his skill. It was tempting to start with one we were familiar with that was bound to be good, but the stickler in me won out and we started with this, his first one.
-About: A former cop whose become a Private Investigator with a side business of repossessing cars for a car dealer, gets hired, by an odd character, to investigate the gentleman that his sister is living with.
-Liked: Well-developed characters; likeable protagonist; interesting plot; learned a bit about caddying—like, that it’s also called “looping” (From Liveabout dotcom: “in golf, "looper" is another term for a caddie, "loop" is another term for a round of golf and "looping" is another term for caddying.”)
-Disliked: Did people still say “Daddy-O” in the 80’s? That and some other corny vernacular that sounded more 60’s—and maybe that was supposed to be the time-frame. I don’t think a time-frame was ever mentioned. It didn’t really bother me, I just questioned it.
-Overall: My husband and I liked it enough to be interested in reading more from this author. I’m not positive we’ll stick to the chronological order. I’m thinking if his writing develops in an objectionable direction, we’ll skip to the ones we’re familiar with as movies. But so far, we find the author readable.

AUTHOR:
Lee Earle “James” Ellroy:
(Excerpt from Wikipedia): “Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences,[2] and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990), White Jazz (1992), American Tabloid (1995), The Cold Six Thousand (2001), and Blood's a Rover (2009).”

NARRATOR(S):
R. C. Bray
(Excerpt from Wikipedia) “R. C. Bray (born July 28, 1977 in Chicago) is an American producer and voice actor known for over 250 audiobooks, an Audie Award, Earphones Awards, and Voice Arts Awards winner, Off-Broadway and Edinburgh Fringe Festival performer, and TV and radio commercial narrator.[5][6]”
-I’ve heard this narrator before with Andy Weir’s “The Martian”, he’s very good.

GENRE: Thriller; Fiction; Noir; Detective; Crime

SUBJECTS: Repossessing vehicles; Caddies; Golf Clubs; Crime; Classical music; Arson; Antisemitism; Bigotry; Private Investigation; Corruption; Pornography

LOCATIONS: Los Angeles, California; Tijuana, Mexico

DEDICATION: “To Randy Rice”

EXCERPT: From: “Chapter 1”
“Business was good. It was the same thing every summer. The smog and heat rolled in, blanketing the basin; people succumbed to torpor and malaise; old resolves died; old commitments went unheeded. And I profited: my desk was covere4d with repo orders, ranging in make and model from Datsun Sedan to Eldorado Ragtop, and in territory from Watts to Pacoima. Sitting at my desk, listening to the Beethoven Violin Concerto and drinking my third cup of coffee, I calculated my fees, less expenses. I sighed and blessed Cal Myers and his paranoia and greed. Our association dates back to my days with Hollywood Vice, when we were both in trouble and I did him a big favor. Now, years later, his guilty nobless oblige supports me in something like middle-class splendor, tax-free.
Our arrangement is simple, and a splendid hedge against inflation: Cal's down payments are the lowest in L.A., and his monthly payments the highest. My fee for a repossession is the sum of the owner's monthly whip-out. For this Cal gets the dubious satisfaction of having a licensed private investigator do his rip-offs, and implicit silence on my part regarding all his past activities. He shouldn't worry. I would never rat on him for anything, under any circumstances. Still, he does. We never talk about these things; our relationship is largely elliptical. When I was on the sauce, he felt he had the upper hand, but now that I'm sober he accords me more intelligence and cunningness than I possess.
I surveyed the figures on my scratch pad: eleven cars, a total of $1,881.00 in monthlies, less 20 percent or $376.20 for my driver. $1,504.80 for me. Things looked good. I took the record off the turntable, dusted it carefully, and replaced it in its sleeve. I looked at the Joseph Karl Stieler print on my living room wall: Beethoven, the greatest musician of all time, scowling, pen in hand, composing the Missa Solemnis, his face alight with inward heroism.
I called Irwin, my driver, and told him to meet me at my place in an hour and to bring coffee--there was work on the line. He was grumpy until I mentioned money. I hung up and looked out my window. It was getting light. Hollywood, below me, was filling up with hazy sunshine. I felt a slight tremor: part caffein, part Beethoven, part a last passage of night air. I felt my life was going to change.”

RATING:
4 stars

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
4/29/23 to 5/4/23 ( )

I am missing something
How has this author gotten as popular as he is.
I realize this was his first book, but still, it is not a book that tells a story it tells a bunch of facts. At least the book was complete sentences. His layer stuff is unreadable for me since the sentences contain 4-5 words.
I will try Black Dalhlia but if it doesn’t blow me away I am done with this author. ( )

El detective Fritz Brown, un ex alcohólico obsesionado con la música clásica, especialmente la de Beethoven, no es un detective convencional: le echaron de la policía de Los Ángeles hace años y todavía tiene que moverse a veces al borde de la ley para salir adelante. Brown tiene una manera muy peculiar de llevar sus casos. Un estrafalario caddie de golf con pinta de mendigo pero mucho dinero, por ejemplo, le ofrece mil dolares para que vigile unos días al rico peletero judío con el que vive su hermana. Pero ella resulta ser muy atractiva, y una apasionada del violoncelo, además, y Brown decide seguirla también a ella e investigar de donde saca su extraño cliente tanto dinero...

This is the 10th Ellroy I've read but I've only listed 2 on Goodreads so far & only given one of them a very quickie, very inadequate 'review'. Ellroy deserves better - & probably gets it elsewhere - it's not like he's a neglected writer.

When the movie "L.A. Confidential" came out I thought it was the only Noir movie I'd seen in recent yrs that measured up to what made the original noir interesting in the 1st place. But I didn't know it was written by Ellroy then. It wasn't until many yrs later that I started reading him. &, yes, he's utterly great. As I've written elsewhere, I consider him to be one of the 4 greatest crime fiction writers. The other 3 being Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, & Patricia Highsmith. Then again, I don't read that much crime fiction writing so maybe there's far more great stuff out there than I know of.

This is the earliest Ellroy I've read yet. He wd've been, what?, in his early 30s when he wrote it? It's intense & wise & grim but, thank goodness?, not nearly as brutal as his later work (but still very brutal). For me, this is the 1st thing I've read by him in wch his writing still has a taste of his predecessors - in particular, Raymond Chandler. In fact, somewhat to my surprise, his detective character, Fritz Brown, even references Chandler's most famous detective:

"The flat finished stucco walls, ratty Persian carpets in the hallway and mahogany doors almost had me convinced it was 1938 and that my fictional predecessor Philip Marlowe was about to confront me with a wisecrack."

Not that that was an especially important moment in the bk or anything - I just found it interesting that Ellroy wd even tip his hat, so to speak. & the writing is great - as w/ the best of 'pulp' fiction this was a page-turner extraordinaire. I was completely engrossed. & if this had been written by Chandler, perhaps some of the at-1st-apparently-nice characters wd've turned out to be even more vicious than anyone else. But Ellroy surprises the reader here by making that NOT SO.

Anyone who reads crime fiction shd read Ellroy. He exemplifies "hard-boiled". ( )

Not quite what I was looking for, likely spoiled by Elmore Leonard. Fritz is needlessly violent, and to questionable ends. LA does nearly emerge as a character itself - hopefully he get's better after this initial effort. ( )