{"product_id":"my-dark-places-isbn-9780679762058","title":"My Dark Places","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe internationally acclaimed author of the L.A. Quartet and The Underworld USA Trilogy presents another literary masterpiece, this time a true crime murder mystery about his own mother.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb.  Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running.  He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself.   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eMy Dark Places\u003c\/i\u003e, our most uncompromising crime writer tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten--and reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is a epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.\"Ellroy is more powerful than ever.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The Nation  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Astonishing . . . original, daring, brilliant.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Philadelphia Inquirer\u003cp\u003eJames Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the L.A. Quartet:\u003ci\u003e The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWhite Jazz, \u003c\/i\u003eand the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy: \u003ci\u003eAmerican Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eBlood’s A Rover.\u003c\/i\u003e These seven novels have won numerous honors and were international best sellers. He is also the author of two collections, \u003ci\u003eCrime Wave\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDestination: Morgue!\u003c\/i\u003e and two memoirs \u003ci\u003eMy Dark Places\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Hilliker Curse\u003c\/i\u003e.  Ellroy currently lives in Denver, Colorado.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewww.jamesellroy.net\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMy father put me in a cab at the El Monte depot. He paid the driver and told him to drop me at Bryant and Maple.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn't want to go back. I didn't want to leave my father. I wanted to blow off El Monte forever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was hot--maybe ten degrees more than L.A. The driver took Tyler north to Bryant and cut east. He turned on Maple and stopped the cab.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI saw police cars and official-type sedans parked at the curb. I saw uniformed men and men in suits standing in my front yard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI knew she was dead. This is not a revised memory or a retrospective hunch. I knew it in the moment--at age ten--on Sunday, June 22nd, 1958.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI walked into the yard. Somebody said, \"There's the boy.\" I saw Mr. and Mrs. Krycki standing by their back door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man took me aside and kneeled down to my level. He said, \"Son, your mother's been killed.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI knew he meant \"murdered.\" I probably trembled or shuddered or weaved a little bit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe man asked me where my father was. I told him he was back at the bus station. A half-dozen men crowded around me. They leaned on their knees and checked me out up-close.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey saw one lucky kid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA cop split for the bus station. A man with a camera walked me back to Mr. Krycki's toolshed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe put an awl in my hand and posed me at a workbench. I held on to a small block of wood and pretended to saw at it. I faced the camera-- and did not blink or smile or cry or betray my internal equilibrium.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe photographer stood in a doorway. The cops stood behind him. I had a rapt audience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe photographer shot some film and urged me to improvise. I hunched over the wood and sawed at it with a half-smile\/ half-grimace. The cops laughed. I laughed. Flashbulbs popped.By the Author of L.A. Confidential","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304211730661,"sku":"NP9780679762058","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780679762058.jpg?v=1767733239","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/my-dark-places-isbn-9780679762058","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}