The Black Dahlia -- Book Review

Officially, the 1% Well-Read Challenge has finished for 2008 -- I am finishing up my last book now and look forward to selecting my new list for 2009/10 sometime in the next week. Sign-ups for the next year are ongoing right now, so if you'd like to pick 10 books from the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list, you can be 1% more well-read too. (Note: A new list was published in the middle of last year's challenge -- I'm adopting the new list for 2009/10).

I've loved exercise of reading books I probably would never have picked up if not for the challenge...like, The Black Dahlia.

The Black Dahlia was published in 1987 and is a crime fiction based on the unsolved Hollywood murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947. It is a dark novel, portraying a corrupted time period in Hollywood's history when the crime fighters were oftentimes the crime dealers. The protagonist, Bucky Bleichert, is an ex-prize fighter and cop in the Los Angeles police department, who struggles to contain his fists and his sexuality at many times while trying to solve this sick and heinous murder crime. His mental overinvolvement in the case, the betrayals of his partner and others that he trusts to be superior, all give this story line lots of twists and turns.

If crime fiction and murder mysteries are your interest, this novel is extremely well-written and puts forth a heck of a tale -- if you can make it through the violence, sex and drugs. Unbelievable. Crime noir in every sense of the word.

I can appreciate the book, but it's just not my thing. It's just a little dark and pessimistic for this Rosy Sunshine. It gets even weirder at the end of the book, when James Ellroy, the author, in an Afterword, describes how the murder of his mother when he was 10 and the murder of Elizabeth Short conjoined for him in writing this novel. His mother was attractive and promiscuous and paralleled the life of Elizabeth Short in many ways...And she was brutally raped and murdered in 1958. Ellroy writes:

Her death corrupted my imagination. My reading focus turned to crime stories. My father bought me Jack Webb’s book The Badge for my eleventh birthday. It contained a piece on the Black Dahlia murder. Jean Hilliker [his mother] and Betty Short—one in transmogrification.

I could not openly grieve for Jean. I could grieve for Betty. I could divert the shame of incestuous lust to a safe lust-object. I could dismiss Jean with a child’s callous heart and grant a devotional love to Betty.

I don't want to spoil it for you but, oh boy, there is a lot to talk about. It would make a great book club book -- but not if your book club is faint of heart.