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The Hilliker Curse Paperback – September 6, 2011

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James Ellroy (Author)
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James Ellroy (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars 19 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (September 6, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307477398
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307477392
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,377,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsAngst, Ecstasy and the Creative Process
By Richard B. Schwartz TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on September 15, 2010
Format: Hardcover
This is the second memoir from James Ellroy and it is different from My Dark Places. That book is more historical and journalistic. The Hilliker Curse is, for lack of a better word, more spiritual. Where My Dark Places spoke of Ellroy's search (with the help of Bill Stoner) for his mother's killer, The Hilliker Curse speaks of Ellroy's search for the love of women. The first book was an investigation; this book is a quest. One is not better than the other (despite what Ellroy might say); they are simply different.

Ellroy's angry love relationship with his mother (who struck him when he elected to live with his father) is deep, troubled and obsessive. It displaces into his search for the love of other women and into the writing of novels to win their hearts and attention. Now that he has found peace, with his new relationship, he is able to see the arc of his life, the arc of his work and the arc of the psychosexual dimensions of his identity with greater clarity. In The Hilliker Curse he charts them.

The writing is urgent, honest and impassioned. He gives us names and he gives us details. He exposes the raw nerves, the personal pathologies and the rhythms of his life. The book is one of the very few examples of confessional, high-romantic but (as he puts it) tory autobiography.

The book is an essential one for Ellroy fans and scholars. It illuminates the dark places but also floods them with unexpected light. It is an exceptionally good read, for those with a taste for fevered autobiography. Most important, it speaks to something which is not in high favor these days, but should be--the nature of the creative process. Ellroy is at his most compelling and most obsessive when he writes.Read more ›
2 Comments 26 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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3.0 out of 5 starsA Second Whack At A Memoir
By G.I Gurdjieff TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on October 7, 2010
Format: Hardcover
At least ten years ago crime writer/novelist James Ellroy wrote MY DARK PLACES. It was a rather intriguing look at his mother's unsolved murder and the ripples that resonated throughout his life because of that loss. It covered his life which had fallen apart, a presumed redemption of sorts through writing, and the burning desire to find his mother's murderer. At that time it appeared that his life had finally turned around. As I recall, Ellroy was married for a second time and had relocated from Los Angeles (the city that made him) and was living in bucolic splendor in Kansas. Fast forward to now. Ellroy is divorced, in a new relationship that is presumably a keeper, and not in Kansas anymore.
THE HILLIKER CURSE revisits his life and peripherally skirts around his mother's murder again to reveal his abysmal track record with women, his unending search for 'her'(the ultimate muse/right woman), and his transition from career thief and druggie/drunk to well-known author.
My major problem with this book is the way it is written. Ellroy projects this
street hip personna through a first person account of his life which is peppered (or saturated) with Ellroy-isms. I'm going to describe his style as Sam Spade meets film noir. I found it interesting, but I suspect most readers except die-hard fans might find this an exercise in creative writing that is just plain irritating and distracting.
The other negative is that it becomes rapidly apparent that the narrative is going to drone on miserably re: Ellroy's problem with healthy relationships/personal intimacy. It seems sort of strange to devote an entire book to his problems with women that apparently stemmed from his lousy relationship with his mother.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsPsychological Study of Sorts
By D_shrink VINE VOICE on September 13, 2010
Format: Hardcover
This is another attempt by the author to exorcise the demons left by the tragic strangulation murder of his own mother in 1958 when he was only ten years of age. It is quite understandable how such a tragic occurrence could afflict a young mind, but it still remains a personalized account and we can't generalize how each of us individually would handle such an occurrence, nor should we hope to ever find out. In his earlier work My Dark Places he unsuccessfully attempted with aid of a retired police detective to solve his mother's murder. The title of this book derives from the fact that his mother's maiden name was HILLIKER. This book was an attempt to show how he tried to cure himself through various schemes as drug and alcohol abuse, paraphilias not limited to S & M,plus numerous visits to prostitutes and other one-night stands, in addition to writing books about his problem.

I think the book is okay, but certainly not up to his earlier works as L.A. Confidential or The Black Dahlia and which were later turned into movies. I simply liked his earlier works better, but for others who have not read them or who might be interested in a personalized account of clinical depression among other problems this just might be your cup of tea. It's not a literary masterpiece, but you still might like it, especially if you are a Ellroy aficionado.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe Hilliker Curse -- Portrait of one man's transformation
By VoiceOfReason on May 25, 2012
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
After reading the most recent Amazon review of this book (April 8, 2012), I felt compelled to weigh in and give a more balanced view of the book and the writer.

As a writer, Ellroy has always been a hard-charging and take-no-prisoners kind of story teller. He writes crime fictiona and mystery novels which expore the underside of humanity, not just the USA (as he pointedly did with AMERICAN TABLOID, THE COLD SIX THOUSAND and BLOOD'S A ROVER). Those novels often treat minorites harshly -- the way conservative males (which is the type of man often drawn to law enforcement and politics) often do. They also often try to position women as sexual cannon fodder. But Ellroy's own history (and, indeed, the mindset of his many protagonists) won't completely allow that. For Ellroy, the image of his long-dead mother (murdered when he was still young) and the undying urge to please her have been a haunting refrain.

Ellroy uses that referain -- So women will love me -- throughout this memory, a litany that is at once sad, unnerving and deadly honest. Ellroy admiting he'd wished his mother would die seems to have unnerved that reviewer before me to the point that he took it personaly (as no other human on the planet had ever done that where a loved one, or a friend, or even a stranger, was concerned). By beginning with that confession, the reader is alerted that this will be a warts and all -- pants dropped in the middle of the town square -- kind of memoir. And Ellroy DOES confess to it all: the petty crimes, the drug use, the marriages entered into for all the wrong reasons.

But it's a short memoir, and if the reader hangs on until the last few chapters, they will notice not only a change in tone, but a change in attitude where Ellroy is concerned.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 starsthe real hilliker

has nothing to do with us real hillikers love how ppl make money our our family name. we fired the first shot in the revolutionary war, nicholas hilliker was cleaning his gun when... Read more

Published 14 months ago by anom
3.0 out of 5 starsAutobiography

OK, but not his best.

Published 17 months ago by marcus
5.0 out of 5 starsGood Old Ellroy Does It Again

It's hard to miss with James Ellroy. He's just a great writer. This book about his mother's effects on his pursuit of women is something different If you like Ellroy, you can't... Read more

Published 23 months ago by bookaddict
5.0 out of 5 starsEllroy

Another good book by James (Black Dahlia) Ellroy. Not as good as L.A. CONF. but an excellent book non de less. TOM

Published on March 13, 2014 by big ed
5.0 out of 5 starsEllroy Psychoanalyzes Himself

What an exhausting ride into Ellroy's psyche! He loves words and language. His scatological writing and free associations are brilliant. Freud is smiling. Read more

Published on December 15, 2013 by ladygodiving
2.0 out of 5 starsA Navel Gazing Memoir with That Unmatchable Hep-Cat Ellrovian Style

It was Cyndi Lauper on THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE who said "Don't meet your heroes," and, while Ellroy has never been a hero to me, he is responsible for some damn fine writing,... Read more

Published on September 3, 2013 by Stacy Helton
1.0 out of 5 starsThe Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women

I could not get into this book at all. Some parts of the book were interesting but for the most part it could not hold my interest. The "hip" jargon was annoying. Read more

Published on September 10, 2012 by Pauline
1.0 out of 5 starsHe Has a License to be a Creep

After reading much of this book (I couldn't finish it), it now seems obvious to me that after the murder of his mother when he was 10 (divorced, she didn't live with him at the... Read more

Published on April 8, 2012 by Keith Otis Edwards
5.0 out of 5 starsDown the rabbit hole of self-exploration

James Ellroy is a terrible, horrible man. He was a drug addict, is a home wrecker, and is still a sex fiend. Read more

Published on February 6, 2012 by Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 starsBrutaly honest, painfully dull - must read?

I cant recall agonizing for so long over what to rate a book.
The four awarded is a compromise; part of me reading Ellroy for the first time wanted to hand over five shiny... Read more

Published on June 29, 2011 by William Riddell

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