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Title: Portrait of an Artist Becoming a Man
Review: James Ellroy's intense memoir explores the development of his imagination and psyche in relation to the most intense experience of his childhood: learning, at 10 years old, that his mother has been murdered. With searing honesty, Ellroy portrays his obsessions, the breakdown of his mental health, and his life as a petty criminal. Simultaneously, he probes the history of Los Angeles (city and county) and the fight against crime there. I found the Ellroy's layers of exploration fascinating. The book's turning point comes when, in 1994, Ellroy hires a detective to join him in reopening the unsolved case of his mother's murder. At this juncture, as he explores the history of detective Stoner, as he explores L. A. more deeply, and as he continues to come to terms with his own life, all of the many dimensions of this memoir begin to cohere and an extraordinary portrait of an artist, James Ellroy, and his milieu, Los Angeles, results.
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