Politics & Power Quote by James Ellroy

Ellroy’s “love” is doing suspiciously heavy lifting here, the kind of word you use to disguise an obsession as a hobby. He frames his appetite for American and LA history as intellectual pleasure, then snaps the mask off with that last clause: “I love brooding on crime.” Not studying it, not understanding it, brooding on it. The verb is gothic, almost devotional. It implies ritual, repetition, the way certain narratives get replayed until they stop being mysteries and start being moods.

The sequence matters. “American history” gives him the panoramic alibi: big structures, civic myth, the nation’s self-portrait. “LA history” tightens the lens to a city that sells sunshine while exporting noir. Ellroy’s work thrives on that collision, where civic boosterism and institutional rot coexist in the same frame. Crime isn’t a detour from history; it’s the mechanism that reveals who gets protected, who gets disappeared, and how power launders itself through cops, courts, tabloids, and “respectable” men.

There’s also an autobiographical pulse under the line. Ellroy’s public persona and novels are haunted by violence and the afterimage of his mother’s unsolved murder, a private wound recast as an aesthetic engine. “Brooding” signals that he isn’t chasing closure. He’s cultivating unease, using crime as a language for desire, shame, and national denial. The intent is almost confrontational: if you want the real story of America, stop looking for heroes and start staring at the body.