The Three Questions with Andy Richter - James Ellroy

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Legendary author James Ellroy joins Andy Richter to discuss his “smog-bound fatherland” of Los Angeles, the tragic loss of his mother, his writing process, and his new novel, The Enchanters!

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to The Three Questions. I'm your host, Andy Richter. And today, I am talking to one of my favorite, most favorite, favorite, favorite writers, James Elroy. James is a legendary crime fiction writer and a true Los Angeles character. He's the author of numerous international bestsellers, including L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia, and American Tabloid. His latest novel, The Enchanters, is out now. Go get it. I was lucky enough to have James in the studio with me, so here's my conversation with the legendary James Can't you tell my love? It's not like a real thing. Yeah. Now, you were just saying you live in Denver.

Yeah, I live in Denver. And you're such a, like L.A. and you are almost synonymous. Like your books are almost all L.A. You're from here. You're such an LA personality. Why don't you live here anymore? Because it's the shits, man. Look at it.

Okay, well, there you go. Gang bangers, junkies, winos, hop heads, people dying of fentanyl overdoses, everything is smeared over with graffiti. There's far too many automobiles. There's too much pollution. But is Denver that much better?

Yeah. Oh, all right. Got some mountains. Yeah. Yeah, got some streams. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you were living in Kansas City for a while, too, weren't you?

I was in Kansas City. Yeah, yeah. Suburban New were living in Kansas City for a while, too, weren't you? I lived in Kansas City. Yeah, yeah. Suburban New York, suburban Connecticut. Uh-huh. I've lived most of the past 40 years away from Los Angeles, my smog-bound fatherland. And I grew up on the east edge of Hollywood. Yeah. A mile east of here.

Yeah, I know. a little bit south because i remember in one of your books i think it was the one you wrote about your mom that you used to kind of live in a park beverly and beverly and van ness yeah which my i used to take my kids to play there yeah and every time i would go, I would think, I wonder where he slept. I wonder where, you know. Up against the fence. The back fence? Yeah. And were you the only one there?

Yeah. And was homelessness an issue? No. What year are we talking about? We're talking about the early 1970s. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody, like, you didn't get rousted?

You didn't get in trouble, you know? No. I had a blanket that I stashed. I had my short dog bottle of Thunderbird wine. Yeah. Yeah. How long was that your home? In and out, three years.

Oh, wow. Wow. Well, we'll get back to that. Yeah. So, I mean, is it strange for you to live somewhere else and write about Los Angeles? Or is Los Angeles sealed in a time different than now for you? So that's… Andy, that's well put.

Yeah. A, I make this shit up. Yeah. From the gate to the conclusion. It's in my blood. It's in my soul. God gave me a certain gift. Yeah. that. It's in my blood. It's in my soul. God gave me a certain gift. And part of it is to explicate

the past and to rewrite the history of LA, my smog-bound fatherland. And that's what I do. Now, I don't live here. And to rewrite the history, is there a purpose behind it, or is it just because it's fun and it's just what you do it's a gas yeah even it is a gas it's a blast history is a blast i just told you out of the studio that like i have a i have a terrible attention span problem and and i'm i'm bad at book reading i read all the time but i read articles i read you know articles and newspaper stuff but to read a book is really tough for me and you're one of the writers that i can really read because it is a gas it's fun it's a high to read your books because they're just they're written in a language i don't you know i don't want to say jazz because

it's such a cliche but it's more like uh a thrill, kind of like a car ride. Like a car ride. They're obsessive. Yeah. They're obsessive. Yeah. Men obsessively in love with strong women. Yeah.

Men out to solve baffling murder cases. Yeah. The language of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. My new book, The Enchanters, is set in 1962. I was 14 years old then. Yeah. I knew shit for Shinola, except

that something's going on here. Yeah. And nobody's telling me the truth about what it is. Yeah. So, years later, I realized, well, Elroy, you'll want to earn a living and have some fun and exercise the gift the guy gave you. Why don't you just go back and live in periods of L.A.'s past and write some books. So damned if I didn't. And how old were you when you came to that awareness?

My late teens initially and the awareness germinated and mutated over the next 10 years, and I started writing when I was 31. Wow. Now, I mean, you have a very tumultuous childhood that you've written about. Your mother was murdered in a still unsolved case, one that you attempted to go back and do something. Yeah, I wrote a book about it, a memoir. I teamed up with a retired L.A.

Sheriff's homicide detective. We got a lot of publicity. We never found a guy who killed my mother. Yeah. And did you ever get any closer to it, do you think? Nowhere. Do you think it was probably just some random act of violence? Well, it was a sexually motivated crime.

I think she met the man that night or had a slightly pre-existing relationship with him. We had a little back house, my mother and I. She was divorced from my old man, and we didn't have a telephone. This is in El Monte, right? This is in El Monte, yeah, in the San Gabriel Valley. Yeah. Real garden spot. Yeah.

Real garden spot. Now, do you think, I mean, obviously, you know, how much are you trying to solve your mother's murder? No, I'm not. You're not? No, I'm not at all. Yeah. Years before she died, my parents, way back when they were together in the early mid-50s, they had a whole closet filled with Life magazines going back to the year zero. And I was always looking at pictures of World War II, pre-World War II,

government investigating committees, crime committees, Japanese internment, all of it. Yeah. I was always, I've never had any kind of, crime committees Japanese internment all of it yeah that was all I've never I've never had any kind of reason

reading dyslexia similar to what you might be dealing with I was always reading mofo yeah

and were your folks that way or was it just naturally built into you they were both readers my dad taught me to read when I was three and a half and it was the only And were your folks that way or was it just naturally built into you? They were both readers. My dad taught me to read when I was three and a half. And it was the only precocity I ever evinced.

I could read early. Yeah, yeah. And were your folks out here, what brought them out here? Because neither one of them were really from here, right? My dad was already in the First World War. Uh-huh. He was three months short of 50 when I was born. Wow.

In 48. My mother won a beauty contest. It was the Elmo Beauty Products Most Charming Red-Haired Woman. They sold hair dye. And my mother was a natural redhead. There was the gray-haired woman. She won an dye. Yeah. And my mother was a natural redhead. There was the gray-haired woman. She won an all-expense-paid trip to L.A. And a screen test.

Blonde woman, brunette woman. Wow. My mom was a redhead. So she flubbed. She was a registered nurse. She flubbed the screen test that they gave her. But she got a suite for a week at the Ambassador Hotel, and she goes, oh, man, Chicago is cold right now, and I'm not going back to bump-huck Tomah,

Wisconsin. Not in this lifetime. L.A. looks pretty good. My dad had the same revelation. They're on a collision course. They look good. Yeah. Where'd they meet? They met, they both lived down near USC. My mother's name was Jean Hilliker. My dad was married to a woman named Jean Feese. That's the two Jeans. And Jean Feese

got to be friends with big, rangy, red-haired Jean Hilliker. And my dad traded in Jean number one. I'm gene number two. Wow. Wow. I bet the gene number one was not real happy about that. No, no, no. She wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. And gene number two is my mother.

Now, in the early days when your folks were still together, I mean, was there a sense of stability? No. No? Never? No, they were yelling and screaming and carrying on. My dad liked women. My mom liked men. My old man was briefly, in the late 40s, around the time I was born, Rita Hayworth's business manager.

Wow. How the hell does that happen? Just happens? He was a croupier at Agua Caliente racetrack in the 30s. And Rita Hayworth was half Anglo, half Mexican national. My dad spoke fluent Spanish, which he learned in school. And he was a croupier at Agua Caliente down in TJ. I swear to you, even though my old man was prodigiously hung,

that he did not work at the Blue Fox to supplant the donkey show, which I saw at the Blue Fox when I was 17 years old. Jesus. But moving along. Well, you got to hit the highlights when you're in TJ. You got to do the touristy things, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

And I did. Take the family. Yeah. Go to the farm. And so they just hit it off? Yeah, they hit it off. Yeah. And she's like, well, he's good with dice, so he must be good with the farm. They just hit it off? Yeah, they hit it off. Yeah. And she's like, well, he's good with dice,

so he must be good with money. Well, the old man told me once, hey, kid, he was from Boston. Yeah. He had the Boston accent. Hey, kid, I fucked Rita Hayworth. I said, fuck you, dad. Fuck you, dad.

You lie like a fucking rug. You did. We talk this way to each other. Yeah, yeah. Dad, you did not fuck Rita Hayworth. Yeah, I was a business manager back in the late 40s, around the time you were born. Ten years after my dad died in 65,

a journalist came around who was doing a biography of Rita Hayworth and damned if he was looking for survivors of my old man like me. And he was her business manager. So everything he told me, I don't know about the, uh, uh, uh, with Rita Hayworth, but I hope it's true. Maybe she, maybe she's my mom. I don't know. Well, she wasn't a redhead, though.

Yeah, she was a redhead. Oh, was she a redhead? Yeah. I might be thinking of another woman that your dad fucked. Who, my mom? You dog, you! Who, my mom? You dog, you.

Is there an escapist element to like growing up in that kind of turmoil and then turn into stories? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love to read. Yeah. And here it is. I turned 75 a couple months ago. I can't believe it. Yeah.

That I'm that old. Yeah. And I got the Robert Kersh Award for Lifetime Achievement in writing about the American West. Congratulations. Thank you. The L.A. Times puts it out. And when I gave the speech, I said, I'm just a dipshit kid. Yeah.

A God-given talent, and I love to read. Yeah. I still love to read. Yeah. Yeah. And it just kind of, yeah, worked out like that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I still love to read. Yeah. Yeah. And it just kind of, yeah, worked out like that? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you feel, I mean, did you grow up feeling kind of rudderless in that way? Because, you know, your mom was gone when you were 10. Yeah. You know, your dad wasn't exactly Ward Cleaver. No. You know. So, I mean, were you just left to your own devices?

Yeah. Was there anybody in your life that kind of was a stabilizing influence or kind of? I was a church-raised kid. I was always going to church, and I love going to church. Yeah. And I still love going to church. Yeah. Are you a believer? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I like going to Sunday school. I like going to church. It was wholesome. Yeah. And I appreciate, you know, and I appreciated that. Well, I also went out and peeped windows and broke into houses and sniffed women's panties and did all kinds of, you know, perverted stuff.

Yeah. Passive type perverted stuff. I was never any kind of badass criminal. Right. Well, did the church then just kind of provide you with like, well, there is a moral framework that I believe in, but I'm going to live sort of parallel to it. Nah, I'm a typical we're fallen human beings.

It's a fallen world. We are divided souls. Every man and woman on this earth is a divided soul. We want to do God's will. We want to do exactly what we want to do and say to our most pressing and most perverse desires 24-7.

And I was just that way. But I had a germ of conscience yeah yeah yeah i mean did your dad have that germ of conscience yeah he had a germ of conscience yeah yeah he did yeah because i i just you know from having read the stuff about them they just they just seem like party people kind of before the curve of party people at least like what we know in popular culture. They weren't particularly outgoing. My dad didn't drink. His ulcer couldn't handle it.

My mother was a big booze hound. It led directly to her death. But they weren't exactly party people. They weren't. Nah. Yeah, yeah. So when are you kind of left on your own then? At what age, you know, you kind of go, after your mom dies, you go live with your dad.

Yeah, right. And that's right over here. Yeah, Beverly and Irving. Beverly and Irving. And what are you, who takes care of you? Are you going to school? Yeah, I'm going to school. Your dad's doing okay taking care of you, you think?

Listen, listen, nobody butt-fucked me in my crib. No, nobody. That is not exactly a high bar. Yeah. Like, nobody butt-fucked me does not like. In my crib. Like, you can't say that if you start a babysitting service. Well, listen, none of our clients have ever been butt-fucked in their house.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe, you know, in the alley. No, no, no. I always had three hots and a cot. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't that bad. Okay, the dog wasn't housebroken. Yeah, I didn't have any friends.

Yeah. But I was a reading motherfucker. Yeah, yeah. I love to read. Yeah. And that's how you learn to write. Yeah. You're having a blast. Yeah. You're having a blast. You're escaping from the world, and you are infusing yourself with narrative. Yeah. You're picking up technique. Yeah.

It's a big, deep process of assimilation. So I was really going to school, even though I never finished high school. Right. What was your favorite stuff to read back then? Crime novels. Always crime? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Like even from a young, do you think that was your mother imprinting that or, you know, your mother's death? Or do you think it was preexisting? Like you were just a crime loving little shit? No. Yeah, yeah. I would read boys adventure stories and sea stories before that. Yeah.

read the written for young people landmark series of biographies of inspirational Americans and world citizens. And then June 22, 1958, my mother's killed. And my focus zeroes in on crime. And that's my sublimated dialogue with my late mother. on crime. And that's my sublimated dialogue with my late mother. It wasn't grief that I felt on occasion of her death. It was curiosity. How did this unknown man and my mother converge on this particular Saturday night? Yeah. What if you trace all the links back to the year zero, what are the levels of causation? Yeah.

I started thinking along those lines, and I became a dog for all sorts of crime drama, crime TV shows, 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside 6, Bourbon Street Beat, all those Warner Brothers TV shows and crime books. First kids' crime books, then adult crime books. And then, big fucking surprise, I grew up to write them. Can't you tell my love's a girl? Is there ever a point where you're like, all right, I've had enough crime? No.

No. No. It's just an insatiable appetite. Yeah. That's lasted whatever, 65 years. Yeah. Wow. That's great.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever, aside from your mother's crime, had the feeling like you wanted to be one of those amateur sleuths that helps find the known of those killers? No. Never wanted to be a policeman. Yeah. Never even thought about it.

Never wanted to do anything but write novels. Yeah. Never even thought about it. Never wanted to do anything but write novels. Yeah. When you say, you mentioned policemen just now, and you have talked often about, like, your love for police. Yeah, that's my best friend. The man sitting in the other room, Glenn Martin. Uh-huh. He's retired LAPD. Oh, he is?

Yeah. And, but, you know, I mean, you kind of were living on the other side of the police there during your youth or. Yeah, but. Listen, shoplifting, petty theft with a prior, drunk, drunk driving, drunken disorderly resisting arrest. I was arrested for burglary once, Lee resisting arrest. I was arrested for burglary once, but I was just sleeping in a deserted house. And I also like to tell the story of how LAPD and Helen Canode, who is my second ex-wife and my girlfriend, and she's the woman who got me to move back to Denver, but we don't live together. We have two lofts on the same floor of the same building. Right.

And that's worse. So you've reconciled, but it's not a marriage and you're living in separate places. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like that. I got a key to her pad, she's got a key to my pad. And it works.

Yeah. It works. Works great. That's great. Yeah. Cohabitation is more difficult than monogamy. Yeah. I think you're right.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But moving along from that, oh, yeah. Helen contends that the LAPD were my stern ass-kicking substitute parents in loco parentis there, that old Latin term. Well, they sure as shit kicked my ass on three auspicious occasions. last ass kicking, which was in the fall of 1973. As I told the people at Chevalier's bookstore last night, I have not stolen so much as a paperclip. So it worked. It worked.

Like, what are we talking, like when you say ass kicking, I mean, what are the injuries? Are you in the hospital after these ass kickings? No. Nah. Nah. Broken ribs? No. Black eyes? Or do they punch you where you can ass kickings? No. Nah. Nah. Broken ribs? No. Black eyes?

Or do they punch you where you can't see it? Nah, listen. They used to have, LAPD used to have little pocket beaver tail saps. Yeah. And along the right-hand legs of their uniform trousers, they had a little slip zap pocket. The first time I ran from a shoplifting arrest outside the Vons Market just south of Beverly and Western. Again, a mile, mile and a half from here. And they chased me. And I thought I could get off the street over at my buddy Doug Weiskopf's place.

But they had police cars and I was on foot. And they ran me up. They got out of the cars and ran me up on somebody's lawn on Beverly and Manhattan. Yeah. Another, you know, while or so from here. Koreatown adjacent. Koreatown. Yeah.

Koreatown. Yeah. And they pulled out the little sap gloves, and they threw me down. Batown. Yeah, yeah. It was Koreatown. Yeah. And they pulled out the little sap gloves, and they threw me down. Bop, bop, bop, bop. They bopped the back of my back. Ah, ah, ah, shit.

Ah, ah, ah. It only hurt momentarily, and I had some aches and pains. And then they said, okay, junior. And they're laughing. Are you a minor at this point? No, I'm 18. Okay. Why do you do that? I said, because I stole a bottle of booze at the market over there, Fonz Market.

No, no, that's the wrong answer. Keep going. So it took me about 10 tries. And I said, because I ran? There you go. So I never ran because I ran? There you go. So I never ran again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Wow. But you still got your ass kicked a couple more times. I sure did. What happened on time two and three that, you know? I pulled myself up to my full height. I looked down on the cops, and said fuck you oh boy wrong yeah yeah yeah wow yeah yeah yeah there's a third time not so much as a paper clip yeah wow yeah yeah yeah and you still do you still have that i mean, you say your best friend is a cop.

Yeah, yeah. Do you have, I mean, the LAPD that you write about, too, is, you know, largely fictitious in many ways, but not that far from kind of what the LAPD kind of represented, which for years and years, which was a very white police force. No, no, no, no. You don't think so? I don't talk politics with anybody, Andy. Oh, all right. So we got, we, no. You don't want to go there at all?

No. Okay. I ain't going there at all. Okay. Yeah, I ain't going there at all. Well, the best, the best people I know are Los Angeles policemen. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Because that's – Then I – I mean, not politically, but do you have no moral qualms with, like, abuses of power? Because that's not really politics, is it? Well, look at what I write about. Yeah. Look at the first scene of my new novel. Yeah. The Enchanters.

Yeah. Yeah. It just – I love it. I revel in it. Would I do it? No. Yeah. And you don't pass judgment on it.

Would I throw a kidnapped suspect off a cliff onto the Pasadena Freeway so that his partner being held in the prowl car there will give up the location of the young woman who's been kidnapped. No, I wouldn't do it. But I sure as shit love writing about it. I'm just another divided Christian. So, I am devout. I am God-fearing. I am law-abiding.

But I got a wild imagination. Yeah, yeah. And it goes to crime. And the day that my mother was killed and I had an ambiguous relationship with her, even though I was only 10 years old. She was a big, good-looking redhead. I have always liked big, good-looking redheads.

One can only suspect that the genesis of my affection for big good of my affection for big, good-looking redheads. Yeah. It's my mom.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So all of a sudden she's dead. So we were over at the El Monte police station and a smiling Irishman type of cop named Ward Hallinan bought me a candy bar out of a vending machine, handed it to me. And I've loved the cops ever since. Wow. Wow.

I think that's the moment. Yeah, yeah. Die is cast. is there because like you said you've been on the straight and narrow morse do is there some sort of like wish fulfillment of that kind of freewheeling ability to you know be violent when it's necessary and you know treat the line of like what the rules are as kind of a you know your own sort of you know i love hopscotch you can go from one to the other of, you know, like a hopscotch. You can go from one to the other, whatever's convenient for you. I got my moral aside. It's over here.

Yeah. It's judging everybody it sees, it judges. I have a great speech from John Osborne's play Luther. I'm fixated on Martin Luther. The historical Martin Luther, the theological Martin Luther, the revolutionary Martin Luther. Yeah, one of the great rebels of human history. Yeah, absolutely.

One of the greatest. And there was ambiguity in Luther, and there was hypocrisy in Luther because he was like all of us. He was a fallen human being. And there is the desire to cut loose at any and all time with whomever I want, with whatever chemical substances I can get my hands on at any given time. I'm the divided souls. Yeah. Most artists are divided souls.

So, you're trying to have it both ways. I see. You just mentioned substance. And throughout your youth, you talked about that you drank for a long time. Are you sober now? Yeah. Yeah. Have you been sober for a long time?

Long time. Long time? Yeah. And you also were doing, is it Benzadrex? Benzadrex inhalers. I was just talking to a friend of mine the other day about this from reading it in your book. And just that there was, I mean, you explained what Benzadrex inhalers were. They were little cotton wads.

And there's Vicks inhalers now. It's like a plastic bullet that you snort. You know, you take a big whiff on. Now it's just menthol in there. But in those days. It was Benzedrine. It was speed. Yeah, it was speed.

But what I really liked was pharmaceutical amphetamines. Oh, wow. Yeah, bifetamine, dexedrine, that kind of stuff. So speed. Yeah. Never stuck a spike in my arm. Yeah. No meth, none of that kind of stuff. no fentanyl overdone none of that shit

and all i did was was slam the ham that's all i did he just made a jerking off motion for those folks slam if slam the ham is too poetic for you slam the ham slam the hand, choke the chicken, flog the dolphin, siphon the python. Right, right. Discipline the bishop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At what point, like what straightens you out? What, like, I mean, aside from the fear of death, was there a point at which you're like, I got to cut this out or I'm... I'm never going to write a novel. Oh, is that what it is? Just writing. I had a novel I wanted to write and I'd never find a girlfriend. Wow. If I kept yanking the crank and looking at Kaya Christian, who was Miss November, 1967

in Playboy, and still the greatest blonde ever to grace the pages of Playboy. All right. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. So, you said you didn't start writing until 31, right? Yeah. That's when you wrote.

What were you doing in your 20s, like just for a living? I was caddying at country clubs. Oh, that's right. Hillcrest and Bel Air and holding down crummy jobs and going to jail for various misdemeanors. I mean, it feels like it would be a very lonely existence during that time. It was. It was. Did you have people that cared about you? I mean, was your dad a presence in your life?

No, my dad had died when I was 17. My mother was long gone. I had some cousins back in Wisconsin that I didn't see. Yeah, yeah. I had a couple of friends. I had a buddy named Randy Rice, who's a good friend. He died in 18. Yeah.

So it was just the idea that I'm going to eventually write these stories that kept you going? Even, like, say, like when you're 19. Because you went to the Army for a minute, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Was that just to avoid getting drafted, or did you think, like, this you went to the Army for a minute, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Was that just to avoid getting drafted? Or did you think, like, this is going to turn me around?

I thought it would turn me around. I'd gotten kicked out of high school. And my dad, who was dying then, signed for me to join the Army. I see. Yeah. And it just was not your thing. Well, you know, he died while I was in basic training. Yeah.

Fort Polk, Louisiana. And I had a meltdown. The Army canned me. Oh, wow. Do you regret that? Do you wish you had stuck around for the Army? No, no. Yeah, it doesn't sound like fun.

It doesn't sound like. In 1965. Yeah. You don't exactly seem like you really were into structure at that time either. No. Yeah, so. Well, now when you start had you were you practicing writing like were you writing little snippets of things

or you just sat down said here comes a novel and then just pushed it out brown's requiem my first novel and based on your caddying experience right yeah yeah yeah you would and you just told me this because i just want to repeat this, that you said that you still, you're not a golfer, but you can still read greens even on TV. Even on TV. Yeah, yeah. That's just something that never left you? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I can't even get the ball in the air. Even when you were a caddy, you couldn't? Yeah. Yeah, because that's always a fun thing with like a caddy, especially like an older caddy yeah to just like hey why don't you take a shot and then they just you know hit it beautifully and land it two two feet from the hole you know and you're like oh you know yeah um when you sit down and you start writing

that book how how does that feel how do you like like, okay, here we go, new life, new chat, you know, I'm going somewhere? The outline for my new novel, which I know we'll get to, yeah, fairly soon, because I am on a book tour, is 425 pages long. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I know exactly where the story has to go. This is a first-person detective novel set in 1962. It involves the Kennedy brothers, Marilyn Monroe, who is just OD'd, a television actress I was obsessed with for many years named Lois Nettleton.

Patricia Kennedy Lawford, one of the Kennedy sisters. She was the tall, good-looking one. And you seem to have a shine for both. I've taken a shine to both of those women. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They both just did it for you.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I outlined this book down to the paragraph break, and that's how it reads as densely, as complexly, as well-layered as it does. I am a plotter. I am a planner. I've never used a computer for anything. I'm computer illiterate. I don't have a cell phone. Helen types emails if a colleague writes to me so I can have an email address and I can send emails that I dictate out.

But I've written all my books by hand. Yeah. All my outlines by hand. I know how to think. Yeah. I know how to sustain concentration. Is that a process that was there in the beginning? Yes.

And it hasn't evolved? It just kind of was there and you're like, I've got to figure this thing out. It was there. I built on it. I see. It was there. I built on it. I know how to sustain concentration.

I'm a good thinker. Just the process of thinking. Do you get stuck often? No. No? Really? Never did. And why is that? What do you think that is?

The outline. No, but I mean it's stuck in the outline. Like, oh shit, I've painted myself into a plot corner and what do I do? If that happens i know how to extricate myself okay do you because your books are so plotty and i also too am like a plot junkie that's i need plot i need things to happen like you know that's especially like i said about trouble with reading books like books where it's sort of like, you know, a quiet story about the emotional evolution of a large family and, you know,

I don't, what are you talking about? I don't have time for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a yawn. I need things to happen. Yeah. And do you ever, as the things are happening, where does character come into that?

Do you, you know? It's all outlined. It's all outlined too? It's all outlined. It's all outlined too. It's all outlined. And it just, and did the character comes through the actions less so than like saying like, well, this guy's motivation is that, you know, he didn't, you know, whatever. History is always there. There are facts that have to be adhered to. There are facts that have to be distorted.

Yeah. There are facts that have to be distorted. Yeah. What I look for when I do research is blank spots that permit me the latitude to fictionalize. I see. And you do fictionalize quite freely in these things. Yeah. So is there a blend of sort of like because you use so many actual characters and you set like in The Enchanters, you have Marilyn Monroe living in sort of call girl apartments in her early. Is this all stuff you just kind of make up or is some of it based on research? The one thing i never answer is what's real and what's not

i see i see i see and i that's a great yeah it's a great policy yeah you know especially for what your work i i wholeheartedly endorse it i deal in verisimilitude and if i can make you believe it's real it's real yeah yeah i love it's momentum andy yeah it's real, it's real. Yeah, yeah. It's momentum, Andy. Yeah. It's just grab the person by the nuts, by the brains, by the soul, and don't let them go. Yeah. I remember when you were a guest on the Conan show, and we talked, and I asked you about, I think it was an American tabloid, where you had a detail that Howard Hughes, when he was cooped up in the top floor of whatever the hotel it was that he owned,

that they put condoms on the doorknobs. And I mentioned that to you and I said, is that a detail you heard? And you said, no, it's just a great joke I came up with. And I love that you called it a joke. Because. You know, because there is so much in your books that is fun. It's like dark and violent and vicious, but it's still kind of fun. It's men. It's men at their worst. It's men at their most preposterous doing the craziest shit on earth. Now, with The Enchanters,

your current book, which is... Is it just out today? Wowee! I would have had confetti here for you if I'd known. It's very centered on the Marilyn Monroe thing. And is that something... Are you always kind of like,

I'm going to get to Marilyn Monroe? I don't like her as an actress, never liked her as a human being, but I love the summer of 1962. And explain why. The 60s are about ready to pop. It's in the ad campaign. It's in the ad campaign. It's in the print ads. It's in the online ads. You mean for your book?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's that Rolling Stones line, it's just a shot away. Yeah. Even though that song, Gimme Shelter,

is circa 1970. Yeah. It's that time and place. It's the cusp where everything changes. Came undone. Yeah. Yeah. It came undone.

So what I do is I anatomize the entirety of the 1960s. I was 14 in 1962 and living down the street here. I remember it very well. I remember the Berlin Wall crisis from the preceding year. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, which came up in October of 62. It's that moment in time. So naturally, you're going to want to have a good-looking blonde woman die. And especially under very ambiguous circumstances, although I will give you this preview, Although I will give you this preview.

It's no more a murder than I'm not sitting here in front of you talking to you right now. She'd been coughing booze and barbiturates and epic quantities for the better part of a decade. It's going to get you sooner or later. Yeah. And that was it. Her number was up. Yeah. But the cast was built in. Yeah.

And the paucity of established fact allowed me of great latitude. Boom. There you go. The enchanters. Now, the story is told from the perspective of, is it Fred Otash? Freddie Otash. Fred Otash. And he has sort of a crew of sort of those guys that sort of live on the line of lawlessness and then lawfulness.

A lot of them are cops. Well, they're not. He's actually their bitch. Oh, really? The Hat Squad? Yeah, yeah. Max Herman? Yeah, the Hat Squad. Yeah, the're not. He's actually their bitch. Oh, really? The Hat Squad. Yeah, yeah. Max Herman. Yeah, the Hat Squad.

Yeah, the Hat Squad. Max Herman, Red Stromwell, Harry Crowder, and Eddie Benson were hard-charging, shit-kicking, 6'4", 240-pound robbery cops. Yeah. And robbery division cops were always the baddest ass of them all because they went after guys who carried guns routinely. So every once in a while, Freddie Otash would get the nudge from Chief William H. Parker or Lieutenant Daryl Gates of the Intelligence Division, who would much later be the chief of the LAPD. And then he's got a couple of goons that work for him. Yeah. Freddie does. Yeah.

He was a scandal rag verifier of stories for Confidential Magazine. He had all the gay bathhouses hotwired in case he could catch the boys and trap them doing it. Dirt on everybody. He had dirt on everybody. He was the dirt king. Yeah. Is he based on anybody?

On himself. On himself. Oh, is he a real actor? Oh, he's a real guy. Wow. Yeah, pretty much. And is he anybody you knew? Yeah, I knew Freddie for a series of years. On himself. Oh, is he a real actor? Oh, he's a real guy. Wow. Yeah, pretty awesome. And is he anybody you knew? Yeah, I knew Freddie for

a series of years. Totally unpleasant. Slob. Yeah, wow. Yeah, yeah. That's fantastic. And so, all these guys are kind of based on real

cops and real characters. The hat squad guys are kind of based on real cops and real characters. The Hat Squad guys are real. May they rest in peace. Yeah. Freddy's two goons. One's fictional. One is factual. Freddy was factual.

Yeah. Some of the Hollywood people. Lois Nettleton. Roddy McDowell. Yeah. Marilyn Monroe. Carol Landis, who committed suicide in 1948. Factual. Yeah.

How do you find out about these people? I mean, nobody else is writing about Freddie O'Tash, you know? I just know it. You just know it from... I've just been reading. I just have my yeah in a book all these years yeah and did you i mean and do you hear i mean because like you said your best friend is now a retired police officer yeah and you know so many cops is this also are you always kind of

soaking up info for info from those guys to kind of yeah yeah color And urban myth. Yeah. Because cops are some of the best bullshitters I have ever met. There are scads of stories pertaining to the LAPD hat squad. Some I believe, some I don't believe, a great many I have utilized. And three of the four men went on to go to law school and became lawyers. And one man became a

county commissioner and two men became superior court judges. Yeah. court judges. Can't you tell my love's a crow? Do you think there's a commonality in the criminal mind and the police mind where they're both drawn to the, they're in the same business. They're just on opposite sides of the same business.

Kind of. Do you think that there's a commonality in their minds? They are afraid to live the square John life, but most of the cops that I know would deny that. They would. Yeah. I don't want to live the square John life. I've been married a bunch of times. No kids.

Yeah. No kids. bunch of times and I don't know kids yeah no kids boy that is a bullet that I have dodged you know and I knew it you didn't want to have kids I don't want to have kids yeah do you not want to be a dad or do you know I don't like kids or I like kids okay individual kids yeah sure as I happen to be some kids that's all we say. Yeah, some kids are all right. Hey, Junior, how are you? Yeah. Yeah, but no, I didn't want anything holding me back or permitting me

from living in my imagination. Except for women. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, you gotta step out of the imagination every now and then. Yeah, every once in a while. Stop slamming the hammer. Yeah, yeah. Choking the chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pinching the priest or whatever, you know. Yeah, every once in a while. Stop slamming the hammer. Yeah, yeah. Choking the chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Pinching the priest, whatever. Yeah, yeah. I'm making some up here. Flogging the dog. When you're writing a book, possibly the most entertaining writer that we have today, do you want to do more than just entertain? I want to move and I want to rip your heart out. Yeah.

I want to break your heart. Yeah. This is a heartbreaker. This is my best book, The Enchanters. And it's very much derived from my early 60s reading habits when schlock big novelists like Harold Robbins and Irving Wallace. And on the women's side, Jacqueline Suzanne were plying their trade. The Love Machine, The Carpetbaggers, The Chapman Report, The Valley of the Dolls. I used to get them, again, right down the street here.

Melrose and Ridgewood at Crown Liquor. They also had a semi-dirty book rack that were the equivalent of the softcore porno films that were on cable TV 20 years ago with Shannon Tweed and Joan Sellers. Skinamax, as they say. Skinamax!

Yes, yes. Home breast office. Yeah! And that's what this book is. Yeah. It's a book about America on the cusp of the 60s. It's just a shot away.

It's about the onset of modernism. It's about social attitudes changing. It's about the body politic, you know, in upheaval, and right in the middle of it, a dead blonde and a corrupt private eye. Yeah. When you're thinking about, like, how does, like, the idea for this book, like The Enchanters, you're just, you're doing whatever you're doing. When do you start to feel like oh

i think this book is going to be about freddie otash and and marilyn monroe and you know like when does that kind of and what what triggers that i conceived it as such yeah i conceived it as such and then i worked out in the outline process the story down to the most minute detail. I'm doing two more Freddie Otesh books. Right, right. All set in 1962. Is it four altogether? Three.

Three altogether. Okay. Yeah. And do you know, like, are there other events? Like, you know, because you've touched on, you know, like I've said, you know, Howard Hughes, Bay of Pigs, all these different sort of big milestones. Are there angles? Are you thinking like, oh, I'm going to get Khrushchev into a book at some point? In the next book, Richard Nixon ran for governor of California up against the incumbent Pat Brown, who was Jerry Brown's dad.

And he lost very badly. Nixon did. Well, damned if he isn't Freddie O's sidekick and foil in the next book I'm going to write. Wow, that's great. Yeah. Are there things left undone that you're working towards that you want to do? Yeah, I want to do two more Freddie Odie otash books and i want to write a gigantic novel vj day august 15th 1945 in real time four viewpoints three men and a woman wow wow why that

particular day i mean i know it's obvious it's a big day. It's a big day. Yeah, it's a big day. But why for you? Why is it that day? Well, I've written one huge novel in real time, my novel Perfidia, largely a book about the Japanese internment here in California. That's the month of Pearl Harbor in real time, but I want to do one day. even more specific yeah even more specific yeah yeah around the clock yeah and that was a day to party around the clock yeah yeah the war's over yeah do you worry about running out of time well yeah i mean i'm 75 yeah that's why you know i mean i don't know like are you are you worried about dying? I don't know. But I mean, you know, like everybody's worried about dying, but not everybody has gigantic novels, you know, sitting three books away. I'm going to make it.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm in good shape for a man my age. You are? Yeah. And yeah, I'm looking forward for the rest of the ride. Yeah. Do you have a sort of governing philosophy that you share with people? I mean, is there any sort of point to any of this when you look back on your life and, you know, you kind of feel like what you want people to take away from James Elroy as a thing?

Well, this always shocks people. And I got some shocked looks at Chevaliers's, which again, right down the street. Right down the street, Larchmont Boulevard. Yeah, Larchmont. And I point to the quote, the epigraph from Proverbs from my book, Prophedia, the epigraph from the 31st Psalm for the enchanters, and how can you write what you do, and all the idiot reviewers that are recapitulating the plot or read one of Elroy's books.

I feel like taking a shower. You hear that one over and over and over and over again. And I said, I want to be thought of as a Christian novelist. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Can you explain that a little bit? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because what happens with people in my books, what do they search for? Love. search for love. Oh, okay. What are they looking for? I'm glad it came out as love. I was afraid it might be, you know, like lawsuits.

Redemption. Redemption. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a cycle of, you know, sinning and redemption yeah yeah yeah it's classic really yeah it's classic yeah yeah um so you're not it's there's not a notion of like you're not an anarchist you're not you're not you're not there's not an amoral aspect to all this sin and all this degradation and all this crime and violence and sex. There's a morality to it. There's a morality to it, and it's all in service of God.

Well, you heard it here first, folks. No, second, third, fourth, or fifth. But you heard it here on, Andy, you heard it here on andy you heard it here on pub date on pub date well thank you so much for coming and hanging with me yeah i had a blast thanks i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad because you know you're one of my favorite writers if not my favorite writer um you know i i mean don't tell elmore leonard do you you like Elmore Leonard? I like the early stuff, and then he got real lazy. Yeah. Real lazy.

And he was just in love with hipness. Yeah. And it drove me crazy. Yeah, yeah. But some of the early books, like Swag, where these two fools in Detroit just decide to become arm robbers. Yeah. And, of course, it all goes to shit. Yeah, yeah.

And people start dying. Yeah, yeah. They werebers. Yeah. And of course, it all goes to shit. Yeah, yeah. And people start dying. Yeah, yeah. They were great. Split Images, City Primeval. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Those books there. Are good, yeah. Late 70s into the mid 80s. Yeah. Yeah, Glitz was good. Well, you got, I mean, you know, yeah, I,

but just like, like I say, you guys, your writing especially, it's just for me, it's just so much fun. And I am the same way too, you know, even like in my viewing habits. I need some crime. I need, you know. Yeah.

Romance is nice, but where's the crime? Domestic drama doesn't, kids, families, I don't care. I don't know from families either. Yeah. But no, I'm a – where's the crime? Yeah. Where's the crime? Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming. God bless you, Andy, and thank you for having me. And I will be back next week with more of this. It won't be as good as this. Goodbye, everybody. Straight ahead. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Dougherty

and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddie Ogden. Research by Alyssa Grahl. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to The Three Questions with Andy Richter

wherever you get your podcasts. And do you have a favorite question you always like to ask people? Let us know in the review section. Can't you tell my love's a-growing? Can't you feel it ain't a-showing? Oh, you must be a-knowing I've got a big, big love This has been a Team Coco production.