- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Century (7 Oct 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 2702890830
- ISBN-13: 978-0712661379
- ASIN: 0712661379
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 4.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 870,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Destination: Morgue
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The fragments of memoir, and three stories, which make up Ellroy's Destination Morgue share the same high-octane nervous jabber, the same noir world of amphetamines, neon and women brutally killed. Ellroy has never entirely got over the murder of his mother--he says so a lot, but that is no reason not to believe him--or a youth of bigotry and petty crime which made him rather more likely to end up a lifer than a best seller. If, at times, he is a bit too keen to tell us how street smart he is, he has nonetheless earned much of the right to do so; pieces here about a pornography obsession or dead killers he quasi-identified with have a scary honesty to them. It is shocking that a man is prepared to say such things about anyone, let alone about himself.
The novellas--collectively 'Rick Loves Donna'--anatomize the thoroughly and entertainingly unhealthy obsession across the decades of a corrupt cop for a starlet with a taste for involvement in vigilante violence. They are not quite vintage Ellroy--a little too close for that to Mickey Spillane on the one hand and the Simpson's 'Itchy and Scratchy' on the other--but they will do until his next dark mad masterpiece comes along.--Roz Kaveney
Review
No manuscript was available for the latest collection of Ellroy's uncollected works. Everything's here you would expect from the man whose last book, The Cold Six Thousand, was described as a 'remarkable accomplishment'; sex, violence, true crime, scandal and a new novella called Hollywood Fuck Pad. However, Destination Morgue features a whole lot more than Ellroy's usual fare - pictures from low- rent paparazzi, including 'stretch marks revealed', 'gaping flies outside whorehouses' and 'toilet-stall assignations'. Expect darkness, depth, intensity and lots of comment from an author generally and critically acknowledged as one of America's greatest living crime writers, a claim backed by impressive sales figures for American Tabloid - 40,000 in hardback (a fivefold increase) and 75,000 in paperback. If you're not familiar with Ellroy, that's an omission you should remedy.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Not classic Ellroy by any means. His hipster-jive patois is more impenetrable than ever - it's beginning to reek of self-indulgence - and the pieces here are of widely varying quality. The non-fiction articles written for GQ are intermittently interesting, but the autobiographical pieces are somewhat repellent (Ellroy as a young man was a doofus, lovelife bottom-feeder, not the epic rebel he imagines) - his un-PC rantings come off as affectation. The novellas offer thin entertainment, but don't come close to the majestic grandeur of Ellroy's novels.
Ellroy is a born novelist, but as again reiterated here, he is not a short-story writer or journalist. Stick to the day job Ellroy, why waste time when you should be working on that new novel.
Ellroy is a born novelist, but as again reiterated here, he is not a short-story writer or journalist. Stick to the day job Ellroy, why waste time when you should be working on that new novel.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This reviewer is an Ellroy fan. This reviewer dug The Big Nowhere. This reviewer dug LA Confidential. This reviewer dug American Tabloid tres righteous.
I heard there was a new Ellroy tome out. I checked Google. Shagged a number for the library. 28 Bank Street. I hit the library. I braced the librarian. Aisle six. Non-fic. I found the book. I withdrew the book. I read the book.
I glommed the GQ articles. Three novellas. Ellroy's style is mucho terse. Ellroy's style is tres irritating. Ellroy's style is mysteriously readable.
The book is okay. The book is not classic Ellroy. Ellroy is not as cool as he thinks.
I heard there was a new Ellroy tome out. I checked Google. Shagged a number for the library. 28 Bank Street. I hit the library. I braced the librarian. Aisle six. Non-fic. I found the book. I withdrew the book. I read the book.
I glommed the GQ articles. Three novellas. Ellroy's style is mucho terse. Ellroy's style is tres irritating. Ellroy's style is mysteriously readable.
The book is okay. The book is not classic Ellroy. Ellroy is not as cool as he thinks.
Format:Paperback
I only half-liked this one, and because it's Ellroy I kept reading when if it were any other writer i probably would've given up.
I don't have much to say about it either. I usually find Ellroy's style of short sentences to work well in the novels, but not so much in these stories, some of which are non-fiction. The first story about his dad and boxing was almost painful, in a bad way. I got so bored and kept turning ahead to see when it would finish. I guess short sentences when you're describing the past isn't so great, whereas in a plot of action it works much better.
The fiction stories are better. The ugly cop and Donna the movie star, I thought they had a really strong relationship. And they only saw each other when there was a murder or crisis, which is a theme I like a lot. When things are normal they have no interest in each other and aren't boring enough to give it a try.
Another thing about this book is that some of the non-fiction stories are Ellroy's pursuit of real life murder cases. It does drag a little bit as he keeps doing his short sentences, but it's also involving because you know some of the cases might not get solved. Makes you feel very sad for the victims and you want to go back in time and save them yourself.
I don't have much to say about it either. I usually find Ellroy's style of short sentences to work well in the novels, but not so much in these stories, some of which are non-fiction. The first story about his dad and boxing was almost painful, in a bad way. I got so bored and kept turning ahead to see when it would finish. I guess short sentences when you're describing the past isn't so great, whereas in a plot of action it works much better.
The fiction stories are better. The ugly cop and Donna the movie star, I thought they had a really strong relationship. And they only saw each other when there was a murder or crisis, which is a theme I like a lot. When things are normal they have no interest in each other and aren't boring enough to give it a try.
Another thing about this book is that some of the non-fiction stories are Ellroy's pursuit of real life murder cases. It does drag a little bit as he keeps doing his short sentences, but it's also involving because you know some of the cases might not get solved. Makes you feel very sad for the victims and you want to go back in time and save them yourself.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Disappointed fan
I am a lifelong Ellroy fan and was really disappointed with this one. It is written in a strange kind of "stream of consciousness" language which really prevents you getting into... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Dave Robicheaux
Avant-noir
This is Ellroy's second collection of shorts, a mixture of essays from GQ magazine with three inter-linked (and previously unpublished) novellas. Read more
Published on 17 Sep 2006 by kvetner
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
