Perry's Reviews > American Tabloid

A Supercollider Story
"In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight.
Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
***
Near the village, the peaceful village,
The lion sleeps tonight."
The Tokens, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, 1961



Named by Time magazine as 1995's Best Fiction, American Tabloid is the literary equivalent of "packing heat and unloading." Written in a pugnacious style I haven't really read before, the book centers on 3 men: Kemper Boyd, a philandering FBI agent recruited by J. Edgar Hoover to infiltrate the Kennedy clan via Bobby's efforts to prosecute Jimmy Hoffa and his mob associates; Ward Littell, an obdurate alcoholic FBI agent who's on the outs with Hoover and ultimately becomes connected with organized crime in Chicago and Howard Hughes; and, Pete Bondurant, a bad-to-the-bone heavy lifter, former law enforcement officer, who works for Hughes, Hoffa and ultimately with the CIA.


J. Edgar Hoover (in men's clothes)

The story takes place over 5 years from November 1958 through the day of Pres. Kennedy's assassination, covering shakedowns, collusions, heroin, the Bay of Pigs, numerous hits and a treasonous "contract." In addition to the H's (Hoover, Hughes and Hoffa), the novel is filled with FBI and CIA officials, anti-Castro rebels, the Hollywood crowd, CIA officials, Cuban commies and various mobsters from New York, Chicago and Miami.


Howard Hughes

Ellroy pulls no punches in this explosive novel that dashes from page 1 to its fateful finish.


Castro with Khrushchev at Kremlin, 1963

Edit: It takes a few minutes to get acclimated to Ellroy's writing style. Brash, short in-your-face paragraphs. Exhibit 1:

“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
***
The real Trinity of Camelot was Look Good, Kick Ass, Get Laid. Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He called a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab.

Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame. It's time to dislodge his urn and cast light on a few men who attended his ascent and facilitated his fall.

They were rough cops and shakedown artists. ... wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American History would not exist as we know it.

It's time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define their time.

Here's to them.”