James Ellroy

Biography

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.

See Work

ESSAYS / Summer 2006

My Mother and the Dahlia

By James Ellroy

My mother’s name was Geneva Hilliker. She dropped the “Ellroy” when she renounced my father. I laud her repudiation and commend her desire to live without a male-surname appendage. She haunts me in deep and unfathomable ways. I often travel...