living a few doors away from her, so as to avoid the constrictions of co-habitation. But contentment may explain why, as Powell tactfully puts it, his most recent novels are “beginning to lose a sense of emotional power”. This is a terrific book for James Ellroy lovers. It relies heavily on Ellroy’s memoir, My Dark Places, but Steven Powell has managed to find additional primary sources in writing this biography. Powell does not set out to expose Ellroy, who has always been perfectly happy to expose himself. If anything, you sense Powell feels safer discussing his subject’s sexual conduct than his right-wing (sometimes far-right) views, which are mostly attributed to an understandable hunger for attention in his youth. ‘With any feelings of anti-Semitism long behind him, Ellroy enjoyed taking in the culture at the Hillcrest’ (his local golf club in Los Angeles) is one of a number of sentences that sow doubt rather than eliminate it.

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. I’m a perfect example of that: Despite being a rabid Ellroy fan and devotee since I was 14 years old (27 years ago…), and even after reading literally hundreds of Ellroy interviews and related media throughout that time, there were elements of Love Me Fierce in Danger that surprised even me… No spoilers here, but there’s even a highly symbolic scene involving the Demon Dog as a then-infantile Demon Puppy that serves as a foreshadowing of Ellroy’s evisceration—and thus, humanizing—of Hollywood’s numerous dirty secrets in the decades to come… I have actually never read a James Ellroy novel, although I have seen several of the movie versions. I knew he had a reputation that was somewhat volatile, but had no idea of the depth and breadth of that volatility throughout the course of his lifetime. Weirdly, there is one whom Powell very carefully avoids naming, even while providing more than enough information to identify her, so I'm not sure what's going on there.The early part of the book is completely wild as we are introduced to Ellroy's parents, who led similarly barnstorming lives before the murder of Ellroy's mother when he was 10 years old. The effect of this on the young Ellroy cannot be understated as even while he believes himself to be the next great crime writer he spends his years scraping by enough to fuel his addiction to alcohol. In between is a life of nearly nonstop chaos. Ellroy nearly died multiple times of alcohol and drug abuse before publishing a single book, let alone become the massively influential and successful giant of the genre he is now. Most of his fans already know this, as well as the story of his mother's murder, as it's all in MY DARK PLACES. Powell's work digs deeper into that material, but it doesn't feel like rehashing. How did a child, then adolescent, with this start in life end up a best-selling author? Love Me Fierce does an admirable job of showing the why of Ellroy’s passionate love for crime fiction, and how he taught himself to master the genre. The other primary storyline is Ellroy’s predictable difficulties with mood instability and with maintaining relationships with women. Powell introduced his favorite Ellroy novels and book series offering detailed accounts related to his writing styles of combining fictional characterization with real life events, and his technique of limiting dialogue to reduce the manuscript content. If a name was dropped, a credible story followed—also included were easy to follow timelines, cultural events, trips abroad, literary agents, famous editors, celebrities and other insiders in the publishing and film industries. Ellroy generously donated his papers to the University of South Carolina (1999) he visits on occasion to lecture and update the archive. In the 1970’s, homelessness, arrests/petty crimes and inhalant and alcohol abuse had taken a toll on Ellroy’s mental and physical health. As he turned his life around, he began writing. Ellroy sharpened his public speaking skills and dazzled AA members with his gifted storytelling abilities.

I have to say that this was quite the ride. At times I just had to set it aside because of some of the stuff that was described. I can say there are definitely a couple of his books I would like to read now. Love me Fierce in Danger is first a portrait of the artist as an energetic and trauma-tempered young dog, and then later—an elder hound both content with the considerable dent he’s made in the universe, and yet still today as a septuagenarian, not content to simply roll over…

Steven Powell, a British academic, has spoken to dozens of whiplashed witnesses to the Ellroy story, as well as securing many hours’ worth of interviews with the demon dog himself. Powell convinced Ellroy he was the man to take on his biography after unearthing the hitherto unknown identity of the first husband of Ellroy’s mother Jean – a possible suspect