James Ellroy

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels, The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz, were international bestsellers. He is currently completing his Underworld USA trilogy. The first novel in the series, American Tabloid, was Time magazine’s Best Book of 1995 and the second, The Cold Six Thousand, earned him GQ’s 2001 Writer of the Year. The film version of The Black Dahlia, starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, and Hilary Swank and directed by Brian De Palma, opens September 15, 2006.

Published in VQR

• My Mother and the Dahlia, Summer 2006