Customer Reviews

The Cold Six Thousand

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

How do you follow a novel like American Tabloid, the definitive Kennedy assassination conspiracy novel? You write a novel like The Cold Six Thousand, which is the definitive RFK, MLK, Vietnam, Howard Hughes, Mafia, Las Vegas and J. Edgar Hoover conspiracy novel. The Cold Six Thousand starts off where Tabloid ended, on the 22nd of November 1963, the day of Kennedy's assassination. We are reintroduced to characters we have met in earlier novels (Pete Bondurant from White Jazz and American Tabloid) and Ward Littell (from American Tabloid) and to new characters such as the Tedrows, father Wayne Sr. and son Wayne Jr. Wayne Jr., a Las Vegas police officer, is sent to Dallas to kill a pimp, his fee for doing so, six thousand untraceable dollars. The roller coaster ride begins here, weaving his fictional characters in with real life characters (Jack Ruby, J. Edgar Hoover and Bayard Rustin to name a few) Ellroy takes us on a savage tour of the dark and ugly side of the 1960s from a heroin processing operation in Vietnam to the civil rights marches of the American south with plenty of stops in Las Vegas which Ward Littell is attempting to purchase for Howard Hughes while still allowing the mob to stay in control and collect their skim. Some of Ellroy's takes on the activities of the right wingers at the time might seem a little outre and exaggerated, but after reading Rick Perlstein's _Before the Storm_ and David Halberstam's _The Best and the Brightest_ I find that Ellroy is right on target skewering the nuts of the extreme right wing who infested our country during the 1960s. The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that it bogs down in places. Ellroy needs an editor with balls big enough to say "James, cut this part out, it drags the story". Still, even if the story drags in places Ellroy picks things up quickly and soon you're reading along and feeling as breathless if you just went on a five mile run and smoked a carton of Camels.

This isn't a difficult book by any stretch of the imagination. It's written in one syllable words. Ellroy couldn't write badly if his life depended on it. In an era where most author's take chapter after chapter to get to the meat of the story, Ellroy starts with the meat and chews it up in front of you, like an angry dog. This book is admittedly not my favorite Ellroy book,(that would be White Jazz, also a staccato masterpiece), but it's still the best new book I've read this year.

I've read and enjoyed everything that Ellroy has written. I think that American Tabloid is the best fiction book I've ever read. But the sequel is just plain lacking. While the plot and the cast of characters are still classic Ellroy, the writing itself is lazy and sloppy. What the hell is up with all the 2 and 3 word sentences? Ellroy's always used this tool sparingly. But in this book, its prevalent. Its like he printed his short hand notes instead of the novel. I don't know if Ellroy was in a hurry to get something to market or if he really does think this style is "Cool and edgy" but I just found is plain annoying. This is a major stumble for a great writer. Hopefully he can pull it together for the next novel.

James Ellroy's "The Cold Six Thousand" lacks the kinetic energy of its brilliant predecessor "American Tabloid." Beginning minutes after "Tabloid's" close, "The Cold Six Thousand" traces the underworld history of 1960s America through the morally-impaired eyes of three men: Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a Vegas cop sent to Dallas on a mob errand; Ward Littell, an FBI agent whose loyalties shift from the mob to J. Edgar Hoover and Howard Hughes; and Pete Bondurant, an ex-LA sheriff's department officer with an obsessive dream to liberate Cuba from the Communists. While "American Tabloid" covered a reletively brief period of time (1959 to 1963) and focused on the rise and fall of JFK, "The Cold Six Thousand" finishes off the radical sixties and leaps back and forth between historical events (RFK and Martin Luther King assassinations, the Baptist church bombing that killed four black girls, moving heroin in Saigon and the mob's takeover of Vegas) without leading up to anything. And the charcter arcs aren't as well developed as they were "Tabloid" (Ward Littell's brilliant, stunning, earth-shattering comeback from despair in "American Tabloid" makes him one of the most complex of Ellroy's creations.) Though this novel tends to meander, it is hard to dismiss it as an inferior companion piece to "American Tabloid." All the typical Ellroy flourishes are present: dense plotting, scant character and place descriptions, graphic (to the point of absurdity in some places) violence, mixing fictional and historical people, and the three-man construct he first employed in his brilliant 1987 novel "The Big Nowhere." Ellroy may attribute his genius to his ability to create ultra-dense plots filled with characters numbering in the hundreds. However, his real brilliance lies in the fact that he creates such monumentally unsympathetic heroes as his leads. If there is anything Ellroy will be remembered for it will be for straying from the typical "hero" found in mystery fiction today (the beautiful, brilliant "insert your law enforcement title here" vs. the diabolical serial killer "insert gruesome modus operandi here.") Ellroy's heroes are flawed, reckless and corrupt. Liking them takes time. And "The Cold Six Thousand" delivers this in spades. Also evident is Ellroy's unique tele-type writing style. An example: "Pete punched. Pete kicked. Pete walked." For a while this has been a welcome Ellroy trademark in a craft where so many authors are wordy and overbearing in their descriptions. However, reading 688 pages of this ratta-tat-tat style is tiring and, at times, a bit tedious. It's too bad because I loved his prose in books like "Clandestine" and "The Black Dahlia." Then again, neither novel comes remotely close to the ambitious breadth of his latest work. First time Ellroy readers would be better off beginning with his famous LA Quartet of "The Big Nowhere," "LA Confidential," "White Jazz," and "The Black Dahlia." Only the experienced Ellroy reader need apply to "The Cold Six Thousand."

Ellroy wrote LA Quartet. Ellroy wrote noir. Ellroy gained fans boocoo. Ellroy got plaudits. Ellroy wanted MORE. Ellroy got serious. Ellroy wrote Tabloid. Ellroy eschewed crime writing. Ellroy took White Jazz style. Ellroy did it MORE in Tabloid. GQ loved it. Time loved it. Ellroy got press. Ellroy got praise. Ellroy shook and shimmied. He did the Wah-Watusi. Ellroy wanted MORE. Ellroy wrote Cold Six Thousand. Ellroy said crime fiction is done. Crime fiction is passe. Noir is moribund. Dig it: Ellroy says he writes historical fiction now. New book has triad of mob goons. New book scopes drugs/murder/mob hits/sleaze/corruption. New book warps White Jazz style. New book overdoes style. Style gets confusing. Style too staccato. Style too dense. Style eschews character. Style eschews depth. Ellroy wants to write historical fiction. Ellroy eschews history for conspiracy. Ellroy eschews 60s ambience. Ellroy gives us Mob epic. The Mob ran the country. The Mob called the shots. Ellroy calls it: private nightmare of public policy. Ellroy eschews public policy. Ellroy deals only with private mob plots. The 60s gets bogged down. The 60s gets lost. The 60s gets washed out by mob plots/phone transcriptions/noir violence/Hughes/Sal Mineo/Hoover fixations. Call it: Cold Six vintage Ellroy. Thug triad/noir dames/mob plots/gore/fatalism. Cold Six not historical fiction. Characters shallow/period ambience shallow/plot byzantine. Call it: Read it for Ellroy. Read it for new spin on Noir. Still the best crime fiction. But as historical fiction? Bad juju.

The works of James Ellroy became a bit of an obsession for me after I read the prequel to this novel "American Tabloid". It was grand, epic, and full of detailed characters that showed the seedy underbelly of the "innocent age" of American History. "The Cold Six Thousand" is the second in a planned triolgy of books on this era. It too is epic in scope and vision, and it too tells a great story, but something is off about this book, and to me it seems that the story is TOO big, and for the first time I can think of, Ellroy give us a poorly drawn main character.

First, the story. It is entertaining throughout, and there is never a dull moment. It picks up directly where "American Tabloid" left off, Dallas on the day of the Kennedy Assasination, with two of the consiprators and main characters from "Tabloid", Pete Bondurant, Mob Muscle and sometimes CIA operative, and Ward Littell, Lawyer to the Mob and Howard Hughes, and newly reninstated operative for J. Edgar Hoover. Bondurant has just gotten married and is in town to watch the fireworks. Littell is flown in by Hoover to make sure and FBI connection to the assasination is erased. A third main character is also introduced here, Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a Las Vegas Cop who has been paid the titular $6000 to kill a pimp running from the mob in Vegas. With his usual style for conspiracy and plot, Ellroy weaves all of these stories into the same fabric, as coincidence and circumstance draw these three together over the 1960's, covering a Mob plot to bilk Howard Hughes, Heroin smuggling in Vietnam, and various other 60's conspiracies that Oliver Stone would love to call his own. Ellroy is definitly writing fiction. He's not spinning a yarn he thinks is the truth, he's just telling an interpretation of what MIGHT have happened. And it's gripping reading, written in his now-perfected staccatto prose. However, the story is actually too big. Too many plot threads are woven together to get these three main characters together again and again. By putting them at the center of every big event of the 60's, Ellroy is simply asking too much of the reader. The consipracies are too vast and too connected, unlike the rather simple JFK assasination theory offered up in "Tabloid". While this novel remains intense, it drifts too much too often to rank among his finest work.

The second problem is teh character of Wayne Tedrow, Jr. He is too simply drawn, his motivation and desires too obvious for him to be as deep and conflicted as Bonderant and Littell. All we know is he hates his father but has his father's rage. And that's all there is too him. For Ellroy, who has painted such marvelous characters such as Edmund Exley and Buzz Meeks in previous work, this is almost sad. But it is forgiveable as Littell just gets more and more conflicted and complicated, and Bonderant has to make incredibly difficult decisions.

I would give the book 3 1/2 stars if I was able, but since I can't, I give it a 4, because it's closer to a four. Ellroy still hasn't written a BAD novel in my opinion, but I prefer even "The Black Dahlia" to "The Cold Six Thousand", which probably puts me in the minority. It's is still a great read, if not a great book, and for any Ellroy fan I recommend it. If you're new to Ellroy, pick up "American Tabloid" or "The Big Nowhere" first, and if you like what you read, head over to this one. You need to know Ellroy before you can truly enjoy it.

Make no mistake. You cannot watch TV and write to grandma and read this book at the same time. But if you sit down and pay attention, and actually intend to READ the material, it is brilliant work. Noun/verb/adjective. First grade stuff.

Once again Ellroy has taken awful people and made them compelling. I started out horrified, and then suddenly found myself drawn into their stories. I found myself worrying about them.

One of the most satisfying aspects of the book is its length. This is no afternoon picnic, or two-day read. You commit to its size, you commit to the characters. You spend a lot of time with them. It makes everything that happens in the story immediate for the reader, and makes you part of the gigantic steamroll through history.

Let's just hope Ellroy doesn't take 10 years for the final book in the series.

I was walking through Paris. I came across an English language book store near Le Jardin de Luxemburg. I ducked in for a browse. There it was...Ellroy...The Cold Six Thousand. I popped it open and read the first sentence, flipped through seven hundred pages and read the last sentence. "OK, I'll buy it." I said. "You like Ellroy?" asked le clerk. "Yup." "Read all his books?" "Yup." "Hmmm." I lugged the book over to Rue St. Dominique. There's a small bar with a no-flash front. Can't tell you where exactly. No name, no sign, no tourists. Locals know it as Fabrice's place. He's the small round guy with the sweaty round face. Sits at a table most of the day with his Algerian wife. Anyone shows up at the door he doesn't like, he says he's closed. Fabrice likes me. I spend a lot of cash there when I'm in town. He saw me coming. There was a Pastis on ice and a small jug of water on the table before I sat down. "A new book?" "Oui." He eyed the cover, picked it up and weighed it in his hands. He shrugged and set it down. "I think you will need much to drink." "Thank you Fabrice." Seven hours later. The sun long gone and me still there, reading and reading and reading some more. My mind spinning on the story...my eyes straining with the structure...like reading a novel written for the screen of a cell phone. Ellroy reinvents history. Ellroy reinvents his own characters. Ellroy reinvents the English language. He's off on some Bauhaus word trip. It ain't even the words on the page...it's all the words that ain't there. Strip down the sentence. Make it naked. Make it weird. Make it rip. Your eyes can't keep up with the rhythm. Ellroy is so far gone on his jazz riff, you give up reading...you just hang on for the ride. Ride the drugs. Ride the violence. Ride the plot. Ride the groove. Ellroy is way out there this time. And you can't put it down. I read three hundred pages in one sitting. Fabrice dropping more drinks on the table and me flipping pages still. Then round Midnight. The Eiffel Tower lit up and flashed with thousands of white lights. Like a giant sparkler on the Fourth of July. But the whole weirdness of The Cold Six Thousand turned my mind to mush. My eyes saw nothing but a blur of light above the Paris rooftops. I paid my tab and said good night to Fabrice and his Algerian wife. "You will be back tommorrow?" "Yes, Fabrice. I'll be back." "You will bring this book?" "Yup." "C'est bon?" asked Fabrice. "Tres, tres bon."

This man should either be given a Pulitzer or arrested immediately. Reading him is like getting in a claw-hammer fight. I'm going to take a shower now.

The staccato-style is both fascinating and brilliant, but apparently some people's prayers have been answered as it appears as though the man will alter styles with part 3 as indicated in the below excerpt from a relatively recent interview...

"It came about accidentally, in that I needed to cut 150 pages of L.A. Confidential. It was plot-inviolate, but it ran too long. Thus I began to trim individual scenes, so that there's a telegraphic quality to the prose that fits the story I'm telling: the violence of the action and the violence of the language. I utilized that to a greater degree, stream-of-consciousness style, in White Jazz, which is written in the first person. Then I went back to a more standardized, more explicated style in American Tabloid and My Dark Places. The style I developed for The Cold Six Thousand is a direct, shorter-rather-than-longer sentence style that's declarative and ugly and right there, punching you in the nards. It was appropriate for that book, and that book only, because it's the 1960s. It's largely the story of reactionaries in America during that time, largely a novel of racism and thus the racial invective, and the overall bluntness and ugliness of the language. And the book that I'm working on now, which is a sequel to The Cold Six Thousand, is a different style entirely."