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James Ellroy

The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women: A Memoir Hardcover – Deckle Edge, September 7, 2010

by James Ellroy (Author)

3.9 80 ratings

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The legendary crime writer gives us a raw, brutally candid memoir—as high intensity and as riveting as any of his novels—about his obsessive search for “atonement in women.”

The year was 1958. Jean Hilliker had divorced her fast-buck hustler husband and resurrected her maiden name. Her son, James, was ten years old. He hated and lusted after his mother and “summoned her dead.” She was murdered three months later.

The Hilliker Curse is a predator’s confession, a treatise on guilt and on the power of malediction, and above all, a cri de cœur.JamesEllroy unsparingly describes his shattered childhood, his delinquent teens, his writing life, his love affairs and marriages, his nervous breakdown, and the beginning of a relationship with an extraordinary woman who may just be the long-sought Her.

A layered narrative of time and place, emotion and insight, sexuality and spiritual quest, The Hilliker Curse is a brilliant, soul-baring revelation of self. It is unlike any memoir you have ever read.

Print length

203 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Knopf
Publication date

September 7, 2010
Dimensions

6.25 x 1 x 8.75 inches
ISBN-10

0307593509
ISBN-13

978-0307593504
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Editorial Reviews

From Bookmarks Magazine

There are plenty of things to love about James Ellroy's mysteries--from intriguing yet morally questionable characters to the particular staccato character of his prose. Both are present in The Hilliker Curse, but critics were much less impressed with this memoir than with his fiction. Most felt his prose style confusing, particularly in cases where clarity would seem required. They also had trouble sympathizing with Ellroy's predations, even when he presented a reasonable explanation for his behavior. While many found in his story something to pity, that didn't mean they liked the book. However, Ellroy's most devoted fans may appreciate this added insight into the author's psyche. The rest can move on.

From Booklist

There’s no doubt about it: James Ellroy is a fascinating character. Whether you go for his big-dog-howling-at-the-moon shtick or not, he’s as hard to ignore as a burning fire truck. As he becomes better known, it becomes harder to separate the man from his books—and this book won’t help. His first memoir, My Dark Places (1996), explored the murder of his mother, Jean Hilliker, when he was 10, and the woman-shaped hole in his psyche that he has been falling through ever since. In this short, breathless follow-up, Ellroy attempts to “remove The Curse” by owning his maternal bloodline and by giving us blow-by-blow accounts of his great loves and losses. At first, the revelations are compelling, as the author indicts the tough-guy persona he has so meticulously constructed. Though told with his customary braggadocio, his obsessiveness and neediness are so well limned that it makes the reader’s skin crawl. But his new introspection goes only so far: Ellroy sees himself through the heroic lens of a life writ large, his relationships ordained and heaven-sent. And as their number grows, and their duration lessens, our belief in this enterprise weakens. It becomes a more common tale of a big man with a bigger ego (he coins the word Ellrovian) who blows chance after chance at making relationships work. In the end, his insight fails him, and instead of lifting the curse, he seems more in its thrall than ever. --Keir Graff

Review

“As fascinating as it is at times utterly disturbing.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“Crime writer James Ellroy’s most compelling mystery story has always been his own . . . But The Hilliker Curse is not meant to be merely a confession. It is an act of creation . . . There’s a truth of feeling in it, too, an underlying sense of what it is actually like to live in the vortex of an impossible yearning . . . Ellroy is expert and relentless at dramatizing the effects [of his obsession].”
—Wall Street Journal

“This latest book is Ellroy’s most intimate and personal . . . It’s forceful and unsparing in its revelations . . . [His sentences] make you grateful to read his prose, with its marvelous fury, passion and energy. They also compel you to keep rooting for him.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Crime novelist Ellroy has given us a wild memoir in his hard-boiled, jazzy, staccato style . . . Quite a read.”
—New York Post

“Perhaps the most confessional memoir I’ve ever read.”
—Dallas Morning News

“From the fantastic writer who brought us unforgettable books like L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia, comes this extraordinary in-depth work about his own life. As always, Ellroy is extremely explicit, writing every word of this memoir with an in-your-face passion, elegance, and anger that will literally stop readers in their tracks . . . Bravo!”
—Bookpleasures.com

“Ellroy’s characteristically unforgiving portrait of himself as an angry and frustrated teenager is a masterpiece of savage economy . . . There’s no doubt that Ellroy’s is a singular voice.”
—Observer (UK)

“Fascinating . . . A searching and difficult but utterly compelling and often heartbreaking memoir of love and obsession from noir master James Ellroy . . . Readers familiar with Ellroy will recognize and appreciate the machine-gun prose, Los Angeles chiaroscuro and tortured psyche that Ellroy has made his own.”
—Shelf Awareness

“A fervent portrait of the artist as a young screw-up—an old one, too, who writes like an avenging angel . . . It’s vintage Ellroy.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“The Hilliker Curse centers mainly around the author’s doomed relationships, but also gives tantalizing glimpses into the mind of Ellroy the writer . . . As always, the writing is razor sharp, infused with Ellroy’s patented abrasive black humor. He holds nothing back.”
—ChuckPalahniuk.net

“There’s no doubt about it: James Ellroy is a fascinating character . . . He’s as hard to ignore as a burning fire truck . . . The revelations are compelling, as the author indicts the tough-guy persona he has so meticulously constructed.”
—Booklist

About the Author

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy—American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood’s A Rover—and the L. A. Quartet novels, The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L. A. Confidential, and White Jazz. American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir My Dark Places was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. The Cold Six Thousand was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001. He lives in Los Angeles.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition (September 7, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 203 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0307593509
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307593504
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1 x 8.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,895,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14,139 in Author Biographies
- #79,951 in Memoirs (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 80 ratings

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James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the acclaimed L.A. Qurtet - The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential and White Jazz, as well as the Underworld USA trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover. He is the author of one work of non-fiction, The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.

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VoiceOfReason

The Hilliker Curse -- Portrait of one man's transformation

Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2012

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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. The last woman he meets, in 2008/2009 (the one who most embodies all of the elements of his spiritual hauntress), literally forces Ellroy to become a better man. And that actually shines through on the page, in Ellroy's prose. It's a rare literary feat. And one of the few memoirs worth reading.

7 people found this helpful

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Fyrecurl

A hardhitting autobiography of a popular fiction writer

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2013

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A poignantly brilliant account of the internal struggle, and life of one of America's top fiction writers; The Black Dahlia, and L.A. Confidential. The Hilliker curse traces the life story of a young boy, whose unhealthy sexual fantasies about his seductress, actress mother, takes flight after she is murdered, and he is raised by his dysfunctional father. The book traces his struggle to find himself and eventually make peace with his sexual illusion 'the other,' a woman who he is constantly searching for, that uncannily resembles his deceased mother, Jean Hilliker. Ellroy's use of experimental style, to create the impression of a person struggling through depression, and mental illness, is disconcerting. He creates short choppy, sentences, that leave the reader reeling to hold on, and bouncing from one idea to another, one frame at a time, similar to a mental patient, experiencing the same sort of detachment, and limited perspective. When his mental state is more controlled, the sentences become more coherent, less fragmented, and has a smoother cadence, showing the ups and downs of his struggle. The fact that this reviewer has given the book an 'its okay' rating, by no means should diminish the brilliant manner Ellroy has used style to present his memoir to entangle the reader in his mania. It is a very brutally honest portrayal of a sex addict, that this reader found difficult to enjoy, except in a literary sense. I recommend it to aspiring writers, and readers of experimental writing.

2 people found this helpful

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Crazy Ivan

A Journey into Narcissism and Co-Dependency Without End

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

Let me preface this by saying that I’m a fan of James Ellroy’s novels. Having said that, James Ellroy has something else to say. Check that. Being James Ellroy, he has a LOT to say. He has a lot to say in the way that an alcoholic writes out their first and fourth steps and shares it with their sponsor. Not in a way that shows that the person is sick and tired of their status quo and wants to change. Not a fearless and searching moral inventory. Oh no. This is, “I’m confessing my darkness to you to show how f****ed up I am so that I can justify my unending narcissism and my most current co-dependent relationship. Personal growth and not repeating destructive patterns is for p****es.”

The Hilliker Curse is Ellroy documenting his self-induced melodrama and psychodrama, but in a superficial façade of raw confession and self-introspection. There is nothing to be plumbed from this. There is nothing to be gained by reading this book. It’s a solution to no problem other than James Ellroy and his publisher thinking that the world cares about how he voraciously gormandizes the souls of the women unfortunate enough to catch his fancy.

“I went to AA and stopped drinking.” Great dude, but did you do anything to address the pathology of your addiction? Nope. You simply amped up your addiction to sex. You never did the work to stand on your own. You haven’t grown, you haven’t changed, and somehow a major literary house published this pablum disguised as faux honesty and transparency. This isn’t art, it’s self seeking dressed in ten dollar words. That’s what I really object to about this book — the naked money grab couched as arty confessional.

I know it’s (as of this writing) an almost ten year old book so maybe Ellroy has actually (and finally) grown up, grown a set, and done some real work on himself. But this dreck is on par with the pap usually found in the diaries of adolescent teenagers. Skip this book and use those precious hours to read something meaningful. This ain’t it.

5 people found this helpful

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bookaddict

Good Old Ellroy Does It Again

Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2014

Verified Purchase

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 afford to pass on this book.

Helpful

Quizo Reviews

More savage, intimate Ellroy.

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2011

Verified Purchase

If you're a fan of Ellroy's, this book's a must-read. Learn what he's been up to with the ladies in his life, since "My Dark Places." You'll come away loving him more than ever -- and equally glad you've never been married to him!

One person found this helpful

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Z

The Genius Converses with his own demons.

Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2016

Verified Purchase

One of James Ellroys's very best books. No hiding behind the novelization of his own life here. It's down, dirty and real.

One person found this helpful

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marcus

Autobiography

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

OK, but not his best.

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Frank Lutz

alles bestens

Reviewed in Germany on January 7, 2021

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alles bestens

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John F. Kohne, Jr.

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada on January 16, 2016

Verified Purchase

It got to me on time and it's a good read.

Rosemary Bartholomew

An eye-opening read into James Ellroy's psyche

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

A non-fiction autobiographical book about the murder of James Ellroy's mother, which remains an unsolved case, and his own life. Factual and for Ellroy fans.

a daine

Ellroy doesn't disappoint

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2015

Verified Purchase

This book is a real treat. It manages to be both moving and hilarious. Ellroy is on top form, strung out on love obsessions with various women both real and imagined. His fantasy life is as vivid as his real life-perhaps this is the essence of his genius. Highly recommended.

Varifocal

Egotistical rant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2011

Verified Purchase

The thing about writing in the style of egotistical rant is that you need care little for literary convention. Of course, sometimes this can be groundbreakingly experimental and done with memorable effect, or it can be an excuse for writerly laziness. I found this memoir to be an exhaustingly repetitive self-indulgence, which said very little. Lust, marriage and even love were all recognizable, as was psychotic obsession and mental collapse, but so what? There was nothing here that made me see the world differently or delighted me with its ingenuity or perception. The only thing I can say in its favour is that I felt a compulsion to finish it. Perhaps I was driven by a masochistic need to have confirmed that the book would subside to banal anti-climax and tedium.

6 people found this helpful

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