Country: USA
Genre: Hardboiled/Historical/Literary
Pages: 385 kb (eOriginal)
Order SHAKEDOWN here
Other James Ellroy Books Reviewed:
The Black Dahlia (1987)
White Jazz (1992)
American Tabloid (1995)
My Dark Places (1996)
Marilyn Monroe was the next penance poker. Baby, you did blow half the pharmacists in Beverly Hills in trade for Nembutal and Dilaudid! Maybe I shouldn't have spilled the beans, but I was within my First Amendment rights!
Being James Ellroy must be complicated. You can't write some of the most complex and immersive historical hardboiled fiction (like, let's say...the freakin' L.A Quartet) and not paint yourself in a corner, in terms of expectations. But one isn't called The Demon Dog of Crime Fiction for no reason and Ellroy answered to the sea of demented expectations with a wicked curve ball in The Underworld U.S.A Trilogy. Ellroy's latest project ended in 2009 with the publication of BLOOD'S A ROVER, so what now? The revered writer has resurfaced this year with another puzzling pitch. If Underworld U.S.A was a curve ball, SHAKEDOWN would be a knuckle ball or some kind of exotic twist on the sinker. You have never read a James Ellroy story like this. Hell, you have never read a story like this, period. This novella is going a bit in every directions and requires quite a bit of Ellroy lore, but it's hard not to enjoy him at it's wackiest. Imagine a story written by Ellroy's crazy public alter ego on a hard liquor binge...and you've got SHAKEDOWN.
Remember how Ellroy called his work "postmodern historiographic metafiction"? Well, keep that in mind when you're reading SHAKEDOWN, because it doesn't quite read like a straightforward narrative. It's more of a love letter to one of Ellroy's favorite characters of the mid-century underworld L.A, cop turned gossip magazine rat Freddy Otash. In SHAKEDOWN, Otash is caught in purgatory, making up for the sins of his past life. He's trying to write his way into heaven and used James Ellroy, a writer he met close to his death, to do the deed. Hence the whole metafiction thing. SHAKEDOWN reminisces key scenes of Otash's life and is narrated by him (first person), but he explicitly says that he's using Ellroy as an Earthly vessel to do so. There is even one chapter narrated by Ellroy himself. When I said this was going in every directions, I didn't lie.
While being disconcerting, SHAKEDOWN remains entertaining from cover to cover. When Ellroy plunges us into Otash's memory, it echoes of the L.A Quartet greatness, narrated by the obnoxious troublemaker. What makes SHAKEDOWN different from Ellroy's earlier work (and therefore unique) is that it's written in gossip magazine lingo, with short, shocking sentences, intense name-dropping and exclamation mark. In that sense, SHAKEDOWN is also a love letter from Ellroy to these magazines. It's short, outrageous and fills us with dirty secrets of countless Hollywood stars from Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne and many, many more. The tone differs greatly from what we're used to from James Ellroy. It's outrageous, funny and alliterative (again, like Ellroy's public persona). But it works.
An A-bomb test was scheduled in Nevada. The newspapers predicted some dazzling fireworks. Other bungalow dwellers were up on their roofs. There's Bob Mitchum and a young quail smoking a reefer, there's Marilyn Monroe and Lee Strasberg, there's Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. Everybody looks fuck-struck and happy. Everybody's got a jug for the toast.
I know what you're thinking. A novella? Ellroy has been a 400-pages-and-more guy for almost two decades, why would he write a novella and how could it possibly work? It's a valid question. Think of it like this. If SHAKEDOWN was anywhere over a hundred pages, it would've become a grind. Brevity was part of the process. SHAKEDOWN is a bizarre hybrid between traditional Ellroy novels, 1950s gossip magazines and aging pervert ravings. Long time fans of Ellroy like me will find a lot to like about it, but he won't win new fans over, which is what novellas are usually for. So what's next for Ellroy? Once again, no clue. The man doesn't listen to anybody, but himself and this is good. We wouldn't have had the L.A Quartet if he didn't. The gossip magazine lingo angle is pretty cool, but hopefully he lets go of the afterlife stuff and the metafictional ambitions. SHAKEDOWN read like a promo to me, for it hinted at many potential direction Ellroy is looking into. I happened to really like some of them.
THREE STARS