Playtone/HBO to make Ellroy's "American Underworld" into a series!

Books, comics, TV, music
1

WOOOOOOOOOOT!

Y’all can have yer damn “LA Confidential” and “Black Dahlia” for all I care. The “LA Quartet” of novels Ellroy wrote are very good. I like them a lot…

…but it’s been his “American Underworld” books that set me afire. I’ve had a long love affair with the first book in the series, “American Tabloid”, and I think it might be one of my half-dozen favorite books ever. I had been pretty ambivalent about the second book in the series, “The Cold Six Thousand”. First readthrough and the staccato sentences (think of someone imitating Mamet imitating Hemingway) put me off, but I was bored and re-read it a few months ago and suddenly everything in the book clicked, and there are time when I think it to be every bit the equal of “American Tabloid”.

Now comes news that Tom Hanks and HBO are doing either a mini-series or series based on the books (hasn’t been decided yet how to play it.) The same guy who adapted the screenplays for the John Adams miniseries for Playtone, Kirk Ellis, is having a go at Ellroy’s opus.

If you haven’t read “Tabloid” (and you really, really should), it purports to be the start of James Ellroy’s “secret history” of the U. S. from the late Fifties through '72. “Tabloid” starts during the end of the Ike administration, following two rogue FBI agents and a guy who works as Howard Hughes’s dope procurer/muscle/shakedown artist, and gets them all mixed up with the Kennedys, Castro, the Mob, and culminates with November 22, 1963.

“The Cold Six Thousand” has three protagonists as well, again guys playing different angles, and starts with the coverup of what really happened in Dallas.

The story ideas are riveting enough, but the plotting is beautifully, artfully intricate, and the writing is distinctive Ellroy (if you hate his style, these books will make you hate him more, but if you love his rather unique voice, then he’ll set your hair perking.)

Can’t wait to see who they cast. I’ve always thought of Kemper Boyd as being a guy only George Clooney or Alec Baldwin could play.

Ward Littell seems like maybe a William Macy or Kevin Spacey type.

Pete Bondurant has always made me think of Peter Stormare’s character in “Fargo”.

Please let this come to pass…PLEASE???

2

BTW, the third and last book in the “America Underground” series arrives in September–“Blood’s A Rover”. It goes from '68 to '72, but Ellroy has said he’s leaving Watergate alone. He’s said in interviews that too many players in that scandal are still alive (and thus unavailable for him to fictionalize sleazily) so he’s focusing the final book on American foreign entanglements.

3

You just reminded me that while I read and enjoyed American Tabloid, I never did read The Cold Six Thousand. Going on my list.

4

I’m going to make another effort at The Cold Six Thousand, as while I lovelovelovelove American Tabloid enough to declare it one of the best books I’ve ever read, I just could not get into The Cold Six Thousand, the last three times I tried. I can’t even put my finger on why, but I start and after a couple of chapters, I just put it down and find myself sidetracked by starting another book instead.
Though, everytime I try to read The Cold Six Thousand, it’s another chance to re-read American Tabloid.

5

I don’t know about the HBO series (though I’d bet Madman has made series set in the non-hippy 60’s much more fundable), but I just picked up “Blood’s a Rover”.

I’ve only read 60 pages or so but it is easily as good as “American Tabloid” and “Cold Six Thousand”.

I love the style and language of all of these books - more tone poem than anything else - but one of the best hooks is Ellroy’s alternative history of the United States. Grim, gritty and fully realized. I love his imagined conversations with characters like J. Edgar Hoover, Sonny Liston and Howard Hughes.

Anybody else read this yet?

6

I still haven’t managed to finish The Cold Six Thousand yet, for all the reasons cited earlier in this old thread. And I say this as a hardcore Ellroy fanboy who worships the LA Quartet (I had Ellroy sign my books. In The Black Dahlia he drew a picture of a shark with the word balloon “I like sex!”). But, like others, I got stopped dead at Cold Six Thousand. Not sure why. :( I’m definitely going to try again though.

7

Just FYI, There is an audio book version of “The Cold Six Thousand” that is mesmerizing. I picked it up for some loooonng car drives a few years ago and was really blown away.

I read the book after hearing it, and devoured the American Tabloid after.

Hearing Ellroy’s writing spoken aloud is really a treat.

C6K is an Epic in every sense, but between the ugliness of the characters and its length I’m not suprised it loses people.

8

I bounced off it too actually. I think it’s because the prose is compressed even further from American Tabloid. I loved Tabloid, but 6000 was absolutely pummeling to read. It was like being beaten about the face with SHORT! MANLY!

SENTENCES!

But yeah, I should get into training and go back into the ring with it.

KG

9

Thanks for the rec, this sounds really interesting.