The Big Somewhere

[Ellroys] unique qualities as a crime writer are well captured, and cogently analysed, in The Big Somewhere I think that anyone who is a serious Ellroy fan will find The Big Somewhere insightful and interesting. * Do You Write Under Your Own Name? * The introduction alone making for fascinating reading with these essays one gains a greater insight into how influential he has been, and continues to be so. * Shots Magazine * I can do no better than recommend The Big Somewhere [A] fascinating piece of scholarship. * Getting Away with Murder * Steven Powell is fast becoming the authority on James Ellroy, and this excellent edited collection consolidates and enhances this reputation. The essays, uniformly high-quality and wide-ranging in scope, bring together key scholars in the field and offer complex, exciting ways of understanding Ellroy's entire body of work and the contexts that have produced it. Taken as a whole, this immaculately put-together book should be essential reading for anyone with an interest in Ellroy, crime fiction and post-WW2 American culture. * Andrew Pepper, Senior Lecturer in English, Queen's University Belfast, UK * Pull down the top of your Eldorado and prepare for a ride through the Big Somewhere, aka the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Steven Powell and his colleagues are ready and able to guide you, and theyre not afraid of Ellroy's dark places. * Richard B. Schwartz, Professor of English and Dean of the College of Arts and Science Emeritus, University of Missouri, USA, and author of Nice and Noir: Contemporary American Crime Fiction (2002) * [Ellroys] unique qualities as a crime writer are well captured, and cogently analysed, in The Big Somewhere I enjoyed reading this book, (and not only because of the absence of tedious footnotes in tiny print!). I think that anyone who is a serious Ellroy fan will find The Big Somewhere insightful and interesting. -- Martin Edwards * Do You Write Under Your Own Name Blog *

Steven Powell is an Honorary Fellow in the English Department at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is the editor of Conversations with James Ellroy (2012) and 100 American Crime Writers (2012). His most recent work is James Ellroy: Demon Dog of Crime Fiction (2016).

Introduction Steven Powell (University of Liverpool, UK) Part I: Genre and Literary Influences 1. Tragic Power: The Influence of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett on the Work of James Ellroy Steven Powell (University of Liverpool, UK) 2. No Man's Land: Broken Men and Traumatized Police Officers in The Onion Field and The Black Dahlia Jim Mancall (Wheaton College, USA) Part II: Ellroy and Noir 3. Capable of Anything: Dudley Smiths Role in Ellroys L.A. Quartets Anna Flgge (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany) 4. Geography is Destiny: Cinematising the City in the L.A. Quartet Nathan Ashman (University of Surrey, UK) Part III: "America was Never Innocent": Underworld and Government Power Structures 5. Between Althusser and Foucault: Power Relations in James Ellroys Underworld USA Trilogy Rubn Peinado Abarrio (Independent Scholar) 6. Paradoxes of Race in the L.A. Quartet Joshua Meyer (University of Western Sydney, Australia) 7. The Divine Violence of Underworld USA Rodney Taveira (University of Sydney, Australia) 8. From Paranoia to the Contrary: Plotting the Noir World of James Ellroy Woody Haut (Independent Scholar) Part IV: Ellroy and After: The Ellrovian Influence on Authors and Genre 9. A Pointed Demythologization: The Influence of James Ellroy's Novels on Megan Abbotts Revisionism of the Femme Fatale Diana Powell (University of Liverpool, UK) 10. Individual and Institutionalised Corruption: The Influence of James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet on the Novels of David Peace David Bishop (Independent Scholar) and Steven Powell (University of Liverpool, UK) Bibliography Index