Now what? I thought for a moment, then typed in Conley, Sarabeth’s married name. There were eight results, but none of the Norrises was Hubert or Levi or even Sarabeth. Since I had no idea what the parcel number in question was, I put in the name Norris. I could search by parcel number or by name. The answer might be that simple, that the Norrises and the Lawtons were neighbors back then.Īfter I found the link I wanted, I clicked and was taken to the property tax database. Then I would try to find out where the Lawtons had lived in Athena when Connor Lawton was a child. I wanted to follow a hunch to find out what, if any, property the Norris family might still own in Athena. From there I could link to the information I wanted: Athena County property tax records. When it was ready I opened my browser and typed in the address to the public library website. I waited, not very patiently, for it to finish all the preliminary gyrations it had to go through before I could use it. On a hunch I got up and went to the desk and fired up my computer. I had puzzled over his behavior at the time, and that might be the clue I needed. Pictures of Connor Lawton flashed in my head-Lawton at the Theater Department party, both inside and outside the house. How did Lawton know so much about the history of the Norrises? He had spent his early years in Athena, I knew, but hadn’t he left when he was only four or five? I thought that was what someone told me. But why? I kept coming back to that question. The more I thought about it, the more I figured it was obvious that the “Ferrises” were really the Norrises.īased on Lawton’s notes and the articles from the two newspapers, I had to conclude that Lawton was deliberately writing about the real family, thinly disguised. Instead I focused on the sections that featured the Ferris family. There didn’t seem to be much new that I could glean from those pages. I didn’t spend much time on the portion of the play I thought was based on Ralph and Magda Johnston. He soon dozed off, curled on his back with his front paws in the air. We settled down on the sofa, me confined to a small portion of it on one end while Diesel stretched out to occupy the rest. I headed back to the den, this time with Diesel on my heels. What had I been doing before Diesel alerted me to the presence of the strange envelope?Īh, yes, I was reading the draft of Lawton’s play. I want to burn down the distance between us.Time to get back to work, I decided. I want to find the love we never had and explicate it in your name. I failed you as a talisman- so I stand now as your witness. You brought me into hiding as your good-luck charm. You died stupidly and harshly and without the means to hold your own life dear. He lives on the California coast.Ī cheap Saturday night took you down. American Tabloid was Time’s Novel of the Year for 1995 his memoir My Dark Places was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996 his most recent novel, The Cold Six Thousand, was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year for 2001. Confidential, and White Jazz- were international bestsellers. Quartet novels- The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA. James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. Savoring every word, you won’t stop until you’re done. Your mouth will go dry as you read this book. ”Įllroy’s writing- his whole life-has been leading him to this book. is a haunted man, and more than writer enough to haunt anyone who hears his tale.
Ellroy’s rat-a-tat-tat narration gives his self-lacerating account a sense of brakeless free fall…. “My Dark Places is a genre-busting, oddball classic. Ellroy is never anything but honest: All the scars are exposed … and best of all, it is all written in that familiar Ellroy style, each sentence like a finger jabbed in your chest…. “A dazzling memoir that reads half like a romance, half like the logbook for a homicide investigation…. “As close as you’ll get, safely, to a lifetime obsession with crime. A candid chronicle of growing up weird under the sentence of unexpressed grief. It is also a profoundly pessimistic meditation on the ubiquity of evil…. is part thriller, part screech of pain, part botched exorcism…. James Ellroy’s My Dark Places exceptional in every way. Too grotesque to ignore … too poignant to put down. “An obsessive loop that tightens into a noose … bitter, twisted soul-searching.