The Enchanters by James Ellroy is a gripping novel set in the early 1960s, featuring Freddy Otash, a complex character navigating the world of Hollywood sleaze, bent LA cops, and private eyes. The book delves into the dark underbelly of Los Angeles, mixing historical accuracy with fictional elements to craft a compelling narrative. Ellroy's writing style is described as immersive, with compressed and stylized language that vibrates with action and sensation, providing readers with an intense reading experience.
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Triggers may include drug use, references to historical trauma, and depictions of crime and corruption.
From The Publisher:
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
James Ellroy-Demon Dog of American Letters-goes straight to the tragic heart of 1962 Hollywood with a wild riff on the Marilyn Monroe death myth in an astonishing, behind-the-headlines crime epic.
Los Angeles, August 4, 1962. The city broils through a midsummer heat wave. Marilyn Monroe ODs. A B-movie starlet is kidnapped. The overhyped LAPD overreacts. Chief Bill Parker's looking for some getback. The Monroe deal looks like a moneymaker. He calls in Freddy Otash.
The freewheeling Freddy O: tainted ex-cop, defrocked private eye, dope fiend, and freelance extortionist. A man who lives by the maxim "Opportunity is love." Freddy gets to work. He dimly perceives Marilyn Monroe's death and the kidnapped starlet to be a poisonous riddle that only he has the guts and the brains to untangle. We are with him as he tears through all those who block his path to the truth. We are with him as he penetrates the faux -sunshine of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and the shuck of Camelot. We are with him as he falters, and grasps for love beyond opportunity. We are with him as he tracks Marilyn Monroe's horrific last charade through a nightmare L.A. that he served to create - and as he confronts his complicity and his own raging madness.
It's the Summer of '62, baby. Freddy O's got a hot date with history. The savage Sixties are ready to pop. It's just a shot away.
The Enchanters is a transcendent work of American popular fiction. It is James Ellroy at his most crazed, brilliant, provocative, profanely hilarious, and stop-your-heart tender. It is a luminous psychological drama and an unparalleled thrill ride. It is, resoundingly, the great American crime novel.
What can you read after
The Enchanters?
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