Biography of James Ellroy, including his habit of putting ex-girlfriends in his books as dead hookers. This included Susan Palwick, one of my professors an U. Nevada, Reno. Came up in conversation because I was doing my dissertation on detective fiction.

Love Me Fierce in Danger by Steven Powell is just the type of biography that is needed for a figure like James Ellroy, one that goes beyond just recounting a life and gets into understanding it.

While biographies are certainly always read to understand the subject we often come to them just wanting to know more about them. We usually feel we have some understanding and just want to know the details of the life, knowing our understanding will deepen (or change). In Ellroy's case even the understanding we have is cloudy, such that we hope a biography, in recounting the life, will bring an understanding into better focus. For me, that is what Powell accomplishes here. I'm not sure someone who hasn't experienced what Ellroy has can fully understand him, I'm not sure he understands himself (do any of us?), but after reading this I feel like I can see where he is coming from and what he might, unconsciously or not, be trying to do.

This is a biography that should appeal to those who simply love biographies as well as those interested in Ellroy's work. Those interested in literary history will find a lot here to think about as well.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )