Right now I’m writing this on a ginger ale and Hershey Kisses high, holed up in my apartment watching people venturing in the ice storm wasteland, grooving to the tunes in my head, from Mr Computer, from YouTube while innocent Blacklight lies sleeping. Duran Duran is singing about “entering the atmosphere” but my mind is in the zone, a rat-a-tat-tat land straight out of James Ellroy.

Okay, the ginger ale and Hershey Kisses stuff is true. So is the Duran Duran (“Big Bang Generation” y’all…”greetings from the Big Bang Generation”). But the James Ellroy thing? Don’t get me wrong. I love me the hell outta some James Ellroy. Still regret not being able to get my paws on the signed hardcover copy of My Dark Places his publisher sent to Big Box Books back in the day. I can recite bits of LA Confidential (movie) and wish it had been a trilogy because the book was even more twenty kinds of awesome. I can remember Lloyd Hopkins almost being the hooker’s perfect man because he almost fit the sweater she bought for the perfect man. Heck I can even remember Cathy’s Court.

But slight and wee hardcover staring at me from the ottoman? Well…

Let’s pretend you’re Blacklight and the only exposure you’ve had to James Ellroy is being forced to watch LA Confidential by a girlfriend or wife. Do not pick up The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women: A Memoir. Let’s say you’ve read every single of scrap of Ellroy you can get your hands and know what libraries have which Ellroy books. Stay away from The Hilliker Curse. If you have a time machine and can go back a few years and prevent James Ellroy from writing The Hilliker Curse, please do so.

Okay, maybe The Hilliker Curse isn’t throw into the Marinas Trench bad (okay it is) but we’ve been to this rodeo before. Gigolo/Dad. Whore/Mother/Murder. Junkie/Freak/Writing/Redemption. Ellroy is Lloyd Hopkins minus the looks, the badge and the daughters. Woe to any woman who tangles with him. It’s almost as exhausting to read Ellroy’s tale of loves lost and regained as it is to be an Ellroy love. If only shedding Ellroy could be as easy as closing the covers of the book.