Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy – Author Steven Powell Interviewed by Duane Tucker

Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy has been published for a little under three months now, and so far the reviews and the response from readers has been incredible. I have done a number of interviews to promote the book. You’ll find my latest one below.

Duane Tucker is an actor and writer who was a friend of Ellroy’s for many years, and therefore figures in the biography. If you’re well-versed in Ellroy’s life and writing, you may recognise the name. Tucker interviewed Ellroy for Armchair Detective in 1984. That interview is shrouded in mystery. I won’t go into the details here, but let’s just say that Ellroy was at the beginning of his writing career and had few publicity opportunities at his disposal, so the interview was very helpful in establishing his author profile. Also, Tucker is the type of interviewer who has an uncanny knack for asking the questions that authors want to answer.

I was delighted that Tucker agreed to interview me about Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy, and it required no arm-twisting whatsoever. The interview is below. Enjoy:

Tucker: Congratulations on the Ellroy biography. It’s a dazzling take on a truly ikonic author.

Powell: Thank you! I’m glad I did the Demon Dog justice. He’s quite the character.

Tucker: Yes, I can attest to that. My first question would be, why Ellroy and why now?

Powell: Because Ellroy is one of the most significant figures in American literature of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Note that I said literature, and not just crime fiction, although he has excelled in that as well. His LA Quartet novels are classics of the genre. With the Underworld USA trilogy, he began to draw the attention of more highbrow critics. In terms of ‘Why Now’, I have been planning this book for years. When I began my academic research on Ellroy there weren’t many scholarly articles published on him. Over the years that began to change, and with each article and book I published on Ellroy, I began to build up more material on the author which I realised could be useful for writing his biography. It’s difficult to believe no one has written a biography of Ellroy before now. He has all the ingredients of a fascinating life (murdered mother, early life of crime etc). I thought if no one else is going to write Ellroy’s life-story then I’ll do it myself.

Tucker: But someone else has written Ellroy’s life-story…

Powell: Ellroy himself!

Tucker: Exactly.

Powell: Ellroy has written two memoirs (My Dark Places and The Hilliker Curse), but neither book follows a chronological structure and both leave massive gaps in his biography. Having looked at everything published on Ellroy, I realised that decades of his life were unaccounted for. I could use his memoirs as sources, but I would scrupulously fact-check everything in them through the available documentation, witness testimony etc. I found that Ellroy’s life-story is far more compelling when told from an objective perspective, and not by the man himself.

Tucker: But you know Ellroy. Didn’t that lead to pressure to portray him favourably?

Powell: Indeed I do and I was honoured that Ellroy entrusted me with the massive task of being his biographer. But I knew from the start that I would be going over some controversial territory. Particularly, the tailspin Ellroy went through after his second divorce when he was going from one mad love affair to another. But there was no pressure from Ellroy. He was keen for me to talk to the women involved, and even if they had mixed feelings about Ellroy they would usually give me a balanced portrayal. They told me about his loving side as well as occasional cruel behaviour. It was these contradictory impulses that I wanted to get on the page.

Tucker: Describe the average working day in your life as James Ellroy’s biographer?

Powell: That would depend entirely on what point I was up to in the project at any given time. I may have been searching for people who knew Ellroy at some point in their lives, and seeing if they would agree to be interviewed. Finding people meant combing through marriage records, electoral registers, college yearbooks etc. The internet makes it easier as many of these records are now digitised. If my interview subject was a Hollywood celebrity, then I’d often have to get past their managers, agents and lawyers before I would be allowed to talk to them. Fortunately, most of the people I contacted did agree to be interviewed and their voices are included in the book. Knowing James Ellroy is an intense experience in itself, and people were more than willing to give me their testimony of the man and his era.

Other days might be focused entirely of writing and then redrafting.

Tucker: Speaking of Ellroy’s era, reading the book it occurred to me that he has lived through several major time periods. When researching the book was there any particular place and time that you would really love to have lived through?

Powell: Just one – Venice Beach in the late 1970s. Ellroy had joined Alcoholics Anonymous and was sober, happy and motivated to start his writing career. He was dating and doing all of the enjoyable things in life that addiction will rob from you. Plus, the people he was in AA with were the most extraordinary group you can imagine. Many of them went on to great careers in business, law and the arts. At the time though they were young and just starting their life again after getting sober. They called themselves ‘debris by the sea’.

Tucker: Are you pleased with the reaction to the book so far?

Powell: The reviews have been strong, and the response from readers has been fantastic. I think the book has broad appeal and is not just for Ellroy fans or readers of literary biography. The story really starts with the birth of his parents, and if you follow their lives through to where Ellroy is today then that’s over a hundred years of American history as the backdrop. Ellroy truly has lived through several eras.

Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy is published by Bloomsbury.