The Enchanters by James Ellroy – reviewed for Ellroy Reads
While we await the release of James Ellroy’s new novel Red Sheet, to be published later this year, I thought it would be interesting to revisit Ellroy’s previous novel The Enchanters. I was spending a lot of time with Ellroy, as his biographer, while he was writing The Enchanters and, in the video below, give an in-depth viewpoint of his process, his relationship with the real-life leading character Fred Otash, and how Ellroy’s publishing colleagues perceived the novel.
The Enchanters represented a big change in Ellroy’s writing plans, essentially abandoning, or reformulating if you prefer, his ambition to write a Second Los Angeles Quartet. I hope you enjoy the show. You won’t find this content anywhere else, so why don’t you subscribe to the channel and you’ll never miss an episode.
The Venetian Vase 
Actually just finished reading The Enchanters for maybe the third time overall. I had very mixed feelings the first two times, although this time it read much better for me. Maybe it’s the excitement over Red Sheet and the possibilities it clears up some of my issues with The Enchanters.
It definitely improves with a rereading. Ellroy’s writing is so packed that when you read it quickly, in my case to hit review deadlines, you will miss things. Glad you enjoyed your third visit. It’s exciting to think that we’ll all be reading Red Sheet later this year.
In my case, I noticed on this reading that most of the first 25 percent of the book (over 100 pages) actually is setup as the plot goes back in time several months and is basically Otash and crew spending A LOT of time setting up bugs, taps, and surveillance. I still think Ellroy is at the top of his game when getting into this level of investigative minutia, but it means in this case it takes an awfully long time for the story to really get rolling. I’m hoping Red Sheet doesn’t need quite as much real estate to get moving.
Spoiler Alert-
Initially I was kind of annoyed that a mysterious character Otash spent half the book looking for turned out to have been dealt with at the very beginning. In retrospect, the book needed to start with some action like that or it would taken even longer for the story to start to come together.