I finished James Ellroy‘s The Big Nowhere a while back. I’ve read it a few times now. Don’t know if it’s my favourite of his “L.A. Quartet” but I do relish its quicksand plot, bastard cops, and Ellroy’s unremitting style. The end is so black that when I reach it, I immediately want to start over as maybe things will work out better for my favoured characters the next time around.
The same goes for whenever I rewatch films like The Constant Gardener or television shows like The Shield where the endings are not happy.
Why do I subject myself to this torture?
It’s the execution. It’s the characters. It’s being taken by the hand for a half-hour or hour or ninety-plus minutes or days and returning to the real world short of breath, my heart thundering in my chest and a lump in my throat.
This is not a new discovery. Romeo and Juliet will never grow old. Rick will always have Paris. Rachel and Deckard will never have certainty.
And I think to myself:
Someone wrote that shit.
I lapped that shit up and begged for more.
I want to write like that.
