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Read The Big Nowhere (1994)

The Big Nowhere (1994)

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Series
Rating
4.1 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0099366614 (ISBN13: 9780099366614)
Language
English
Publisher
random house

The Big Nowhere (1994) - Plot & Excerpts

"It was written that I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.” Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness.Newspapers labelled the death of José Gallardo Diaz the Sleepy Lagoon Murder because his unconscious body was found near a local swimming hole. The police arrested 17 Hispanic males for the “murder” even though they had no evidence that a murder had occurred. Diaz was inebriated and eventually died from a fracture at the base of the skull. No one was able to determine exactly how the fracture occurred. He could have just fallen or been in a car accident, details are sketchy. Regardless all 17 of the Hispanics were sentenced to varying lengths of jail time. 9 were convicted of second-degree murder and sent to San Quentin. This was 1942. It pissed a lot of people off. The “unpatriotic” Zoot-Suits being admired by a police officer and a passing young woman.In 1943 war has broken out and thousands of White American sailors and marines are stationed in Los Angeles. They find the Zoot Suits worn by the Hispanic males as unpatriotic and too extravagant to be worn during war. Riots broke out with sailors and marines cruising the streets looking for Zoot Suits to slash with razor blades embedded in 2x4s. Sailors and Marines keeping America safe from the invasion of Zoot-Suits.Sigh. Really?Flash forward to 1950s Los Angeles and a mutilated body is found with Zoot Suit Stick wounds. There are realistic fears that if this were to come to light that it could spark another riot. The case is further compounded by the fact that it is suspected the victim is a homosexual. The investigating officer Danny Upshaw already knows how his fellow officers will label the crime.”PANSY SLASH. QUEER BASH. FRUIT SNUFF. HOMO PASSION JOB.”Homophobia is a pathological condition in 1950. Even though Upshaw is told to let this investigation slide back into the primordial desires from which it sprung... he cannot. He is dealing with conflicting feelings about his own sexual orientation and there are circumstances regarding the death that are beyond just torture, beyond just murder. He is a rising star in the department and when Lieutenant Mal Considine is asked to head up a task force investigating Communism in Hollywood Upshaw is asked to join the team. If he keeps his nose clean he could be the youngest man to ever receive Lieutenants bars. You know how it is. Stick with us kid and you’ll go places. Now Considine is a piece of work. While he was making the world safe for democracy in Europe his wife was hiding the salami with one of his co-workers Buzz Meeks. He finds out about it and falls in lust with a Czechoslovakian woman who had been the mistress of a Nazi officer that just happens to be on trial. She tells him stories about the sexually perverted things this Nazi used to do to her. It turns him on.It infuriates him.He shoots the Nazi in the face several times. Because he is a rising star, and after all it is only a Nazi the whole incident is swept under the carpet. He brings the woman back to the states and marries her.In 1950 she wants a divorce. She tells him that all those things that she told him about the Nazi were made up because she could tell how much it turned him on. He beats her to a pulp. We aren’t talking a few love slaps or a punch or two in anger this is teeth flying, bones breaking, may never look the same again kind of beating. It will be alright Mal, your future is still bright. This will all be worked out after all she is barely a citizen. Buzz find me something young and fresh.Buzz Meeks is a disgraced cop for a variety of infractions, but lands on his feet with a job pimping underage girls for Howard Hughes. He also provides some muscle for Mickey Cohen the reigning Jewish Gangster in Los Angeles. Because of his “special talents” mainly doing whatever someone wants to pay him to do he is asked to join the Communist Task Force. He’s not so sure because he was shot up pretty bad a few years ago and he thinks that Considine might have arranged the hit as payback for the before mentioned salami work he did with the ex-wife. Meeks has another problem he is making the beast with two backs with Cohen’s best girl. Buzz, I love you, but I’m going to have to kill you. It can be slow or it can be fast what you say next is going to decide which.Death wish much?More corpses show up. Cops are shot. Betrayal is the natural order of business creating unlikely allies in a race to discover who will die next and who needs to die next. Jazz musicians, burglary, wolverines, heroin, queer escort services., a promiscuous communist Emma Goldman want-a-be, crooked cops, a woman sleeping with a revolving door of men for the lord, all perfectly natural circumstances to show up in a James Ellroy novel. This is an ambitious novel and Ellroy as always isn’t afraid to hold up the grotesque for us to see. The book is full of interesting, flawed characters who will continue to create involuntary shudders from me for the next several months. Ellroy does have one white knight, but he is so scrambled mentally that he sinks under the constriction of his own confusion. I found the book ponderous which is why despite the Herculean effort by Ellroy I landed on three stars. There was so much going on that I felt overwhelmed and wanted Ellroy to wrap up some of the loose threads sooner. The book is subtitled The Red Scare 1950 and I wanted more of the investigation into Communism, but the characters became too mired in their personal problems shoving that part of the book to a backburner. Ellroy was criticized for being too flagrant with his depiction of a homophobic America. Maybe he does bludgeon the reader with the stupid behavior surrounding homophobia, but then Ellroy always uses a big stick when he is trying to make a point. I enjoyed the other two novels in the L.A. Quartet: The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential. The fourth book,White Jazz, I still need to read and after I shake off some of the weight of this book I will certainly read it as well.

The Big Nowhere is two separate tales eventually twisted together into one; an LA Sheriff’s Deputy tries to capture a brutal sex murderer while serving as a decoy to expose communism in Hollywood. Gangland intrigue and Hollywood sleaze, young deputy Danny Upshaw along with Buzz Meeks and Mal Considine find themselves caught in a hellish web of ambition, perversion, and deceit.Like the other books in the L.A. Quartet, and other James Ellroy books for that fact, The Big Nowhere twists a story around actual events that took place at the time. The labour union battles facing the Hollywood studios, the aftermath of the notorious Sleepy Lagoon murder and the resultant Zoot Suit Riots all take place during this novel. Having read both The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential from this series, I have to say The Big Nowhere was a weaker novel compared to the others. The dark and violent plot was there but maybe violent sex crimes are just too far for me.I’m not sure if it was the fact that sex murders are too disturbing or that I’ve read better crime novels now, but I felt like James Ellroy’s racist and offensive writing was taken a bit too far in this one. I really struggled to get through this book; I kept picking up this book and hitting a wall where I had to walk away for a while before going back. This is never a good sign for a book like this; I think James Ellroy was my first step into the world of noir and hard-boiled fiction but now I’ve read so many other novels I feel like it’s time to leave him behind. I will admit that I really did enjoy The Black Dahlia, L.A. Confidential and even American Tabloid from his latest series but I’m at a point where I need to decide if I want to read any more of his books. Are the others books in the Underworld USA Trilogy any good? Has he gotten less offensive with age? I keep wondering and hoping he has, because I think he’s a great writer I just can’t take anymore of the racism.It’s really hard to enjoy a book like this when you take so much offence with the writing but there are some great noir elements throughout the book that were interesting to explore. Maybe with a little more tolerance I will return to his books because he does weave true crime elements with a great crime plot. I know the writing in supposed to reflect the times and how people spoke and acted towards other races but mixed with the graphic sex this book just become too difficult.This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...

What do You think about The Big Nowhere (1994)?

Los Angeles, 1950 Red crosscurrents: the Commie Scare and a string of brutal mutilation killings. Gangland intrigue and Hollywood sleaze. Three cops caught in a hellish web of ambition, perversion, and deceit. Danny Upshaw is a Sheriff's deputy stuck with a bunch of snuffs nobody cares about; they're his chance to make his name as a cop... and to sate his darkest curiosities. Mal Considine is D.A.'s Bureau brass. He's climbing on the Red Scare bandwagon to advance his career and to gain custody of his adopted son, a child he saved from the horror of postwar Europe. Buzz Meeks-bagman, ex-Narco goon, and pimp for Howard Hughes-is fighting communism for the money. All three men have purchased tickets to a nightmare. This was a grand novel of twists and turns, double-crosses and blackmail, and political intrigue all tied together by the master of noir, James Ellroy. It doesn't get any better than this, people! One thing I found interesting was Buzz Meeks' back story. While I haven't read LA Confidential (it's up next), his character was something of a mystery to me in the movie. This cleared up some of the background between him and Capt Dudley Smith.
—Steve

The Big Nowhere follows The Black Dahlia in Ellroy's L.A. Quartet. Is the genre "crime opera" a thing? 'Cause it should be. Space gets one, why not crime? Anyways, if crime opera is a thing then this is a classic example of it. The scope has widened in this second entry to the L.A. Quartet on multiple levels; we have three POV characters and an omniscient perspective as opposed to the single first person POV of the first book, the single main story thread being replaced by two in this volume and it's just longer, dealing with more people, places and locations. It's also markedly darker, grosser, and more nihilistic. I really thought Ellroy was giving me a heavy dose of grit and corruption with the first book, but this makes me laugh at how naive I was. I had no idea how dark and compelling things could get in this series.Ellroy is the perfect example of a writer transcending their genre; I really hesitate to throw this into the mystery or crime pigeonhole. It's so much more than that! It's too well-written, too character-fueled and too packed with details sordid and sublime. The plot is dense, dark and labyrinthine and at least ONE of the three main characters will grab you. There's Danny Upshaw, a surprisingly moral (for Ellroy) detective obsessed with solving a seriously disturbing and gruesome murder for reasons obvious and less-so; Mal Considine, a man bringing home SERIOUS WW2 baggage who gets involved with another one of D.A. Loew's schemes to elevate himself to power; and finally Buzz Meeks, an ex-cop and semi-pimp to Howard Hughes who also happens to be involved with the ever-present ganglord Mickey Cohen. These guys are interesting before they even do anything! They're also very fallible and occasionally utterly immoral human beings--never plot puppets.Ellroy's prose is still extremely readable while also retaining a certain elegance. I did notice a bit of difference in the voice in Dahlia and in this one; it just seems more assured, more streamlined, more descriptive, more...visual. Even though this was like his sixth or seventh book (read: eighth) at this point he still seems to be developing his style, which is exciting! What kind of creature is going to emerge from this fucked-up smoggy cocoon he dwells in? Makes me kinda glad I was never aware of Ellroy's work until this point, as I get to read all these books and find out. As you might have guessed, those with sensibilities less rough than your average-grade sandpaper will probably want to avoid this. It's totally bleak, harsh and occasionally even disgusting, particularly when it comes to the murder story. From the first chapter when the body is found I had to find out what kind of monster Ellroy had built.The second thread in this story focuses on the D.A. from Dahlia Ellis Loew scheming to uncover a communist conspiracy in the Hollywood film industry--but of course he's doing it to further his political career and not out of any sense of patriotism or real communist threat. Initially I was not terribly interested in this (because while I am a young man and didn't live through the times I still believe that there was no real reason to give a shit about communism in the States...or anywhere else like Vietnam) but the story just grows so much more sordid and layered and tied into Upshaw's murder investigation that I just wanted to keep reading and reading and reading. Seriously, I don't know exactly what it is about Ellroy's writing but his books absolutely fucking REFUSE to be passed over for another on my nightstand. They just scream and cajole and coo until I'm done with them. It's probably unhealthy.I love Ellroy's use of period slang. You don't have political pull, you have juice; you don't wear a gun, you wear a heater; you don't drive a stolen car, you drive a hot roller. Some other fun terms I learned were hophead, rape-o, rebop, sawbuck and roundheeled. The dialogue and writing is musical and smart and completely offensive in a very blase way. He may have had fun indulging in the completely un-PC array of epithets, slurs and insults but I never got the feeling that he used them just for shock value or the hell of it; it seems very true-to-life. It's no secret that the LAPD back then consisted of a vast majority of WASP dudes and thusly they would have been racist as fuck, misogynist and just generally caustic as they are portrayed in these pages. And these dudes are bad men; even the white knight of the story still engages in unarguably illegal acts of questionable ethics. They're horrible, but you can't help but keep your eyes glued to their stories and even, yes, occasionally root for them.This book is the perfect sequel: bigger, better, meaner, faster and more filling than the first, building on the first entry's strengths with every page. If Black Dahlia was an uncomfortably close flyover of Ellroy's postwar L.A. cesspit, The Big Nowhere is a full on cannonball into the filth, grime and dessicated corpses, and one that I happily drowned in for 400 superseedy pages, rushing out and grabbing L.A. Confidential before I had even finished it. The last like 100 pages is a gripping series of curtains being pulled back to reveal the heart beneath layer after layer of plot. And once you get to the bottom...damn. I can't even describe how drained I felt after finishing this. Ellroy pulls tight the myriad perplexing threads with a master's hand. The series continues to be a grand literary tour of the murky netherworld of postwar L.A; its streets, its people, its landmarks, its history. Read it! But start with Black Dahlia.
—Nate

Detective stories are about bringing order to the universe. The genre doesn't start with Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, it starts with Sherlock Holmes, applying logic and reason to the unknown and unsettling. There's a hint of darkness even in the most basic version of the formula- our good detective never stops the Bad from happening, he arrives too late every single time- but by the end of the story he knows what happened and why, and justice is served. Later arrivals to the genre saw the opportunity and chipped away at the happy ending. Sometimes not everything is okay at the end. Sometimes the hero pays a price that goes beyond what is right or fair. But the protagonist doesn't usually come away empty handed. Usually, he (for a long time it's always a "he") gets to leave things at least a little better than he found them. Almost always, he at least comes away knowing what happened, and gets to find out in a way that reinforces the idea that it was possible to figure it out, after all. And at the very least, he gets to set himself in opposition to the evil around him. He gets to draw the line. He gets to be the good guy.For many reasons (the ironic consequences of the moral rules early movies were made to follow, a dependence on visuals, atmosphere, and personality that made it okay for the plots to not always make perfect sense anymore, or just the times when the movies were made), film noir, as opposed to just noir, chipped away at many of these assumptions. The shadows got deeper, motivations got murkier, the world got stranger. And the hero was not only necessarily the hero, he also couldn't count on winning anymore, in any sense.Which brings us to James Ellroy. He doesn't do things exactly the same way each time, but the patterns are telling. There's not usually one protagonist. Usually, there's three. Three is an important number. A solo main character can at least count on not catching a bullet until the last few pages. Two characters will wind towards being allies or being enemies. With three characters, we get to see each member of the trinity from at least two different perspectives. We don't know how the unstable molecule they form will shake out when the heat gets turned up. And we go into the story knowing that we could lose any one of the guys at any moment, and the world will keep on turning.They're not good guys. Ellroy strips his characters of anonymity and privacy, and let's us see the bugs squirming under the rock. They're caught in the grip of forces so much more powerful than they are that they probably can't save themselves, let alone anybody else. And to the extent that they get a glimpse of the events going on around them, it's only to mock the idea that their frail selves ever could've guessed at how complicated, weird, and bad things really are.None of his books are perfect (I might actually give this one four stars purely on it's own merits), but watching him chase down all the loose threads of his world view is fascinating and disturbing in a way that makes me with I could squish both words together like they do in German. I'll single out this one for being the first appearance of Mr. Dudley Smith, who might be the best and scariest bad guy I've ever read. Imagine if Satan were a staunch patriot and not too hung up on prestige. Then finish the book, knowing there's plenty more of him waiting for you. Good stuff.
—Brendan Detzner

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