| White Jazz | |
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First edition cover |
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| Author(s) | James Ellroy |
| Cover artist | Jacket design by Chip Kidd Front–of–jacket photograph by Robert Morrow |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | L.A. Quartet |
| Genre(s) | Novel, crime fiction |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Publication date | September 1, 1992 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback), audio cassette, and audio download |
| Pages | 349 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-679-41449-3 (first edition, hardcover) |
| Preceded by | L.A. Confidential |
White Jazz is a 1992 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy. It is the fourth in his L.A. Quartet, preceded by The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential.
Lieutenant David Klein is a veteran policeman who moonlights as a hitman for organized crime. When he is assigned to investigate a robbery at the home of the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) sanctioned heroin dealer, he uncovers a plot to bring the city's crime syndicates into collusion with the channels of justice.
The stories of many characters that appeared in earlier L.A. Quartet novels, including Edmund Exley and Dudley Smith, have their ends tied up in White Jazz, which also introduces Pete Bondurant, one of the central characters in Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy.
Originally, White Jazz was 900 pages, but his editor asked him to shorten it to 350 pages, which he did by removing all the verbs. [1]
Contents |
White Jazz's prologue is told by protagonist David Douglas Klein, years after the events have taken place:
All I have is the will to remember. Time revoked/fever dreams-I wake up reaching, afraid I'll forget. Pictures keep the woman young. L.A., fall 1958. Newsprint: link the dots. Names, events-so brutal they beg to be connected. Years down-the story stays dispersed. The names are dead or too guilty to tell. I'm old, afraid I'll forget: I killed innocent men. I betrayed sacred oaths. I reaped profit from horror. Fever-that time burning. I want to go with the music-spin, fall with it.[1]
Dave Klein is a Lieutenant in the LAPD's Administrative Vice unit and an attorney. Unlike The Big Nowhere and L.A. Confidential, the book is told with one "protagonist" instead of three, reminiscent of the first novel, The Black Dahlia. It is told from Klein's stream of consciousness. After the reader is updated on LA's status, (Johnny Stompanato's death, Mickey Cohen, a probe set up on organized crime's influence in boxing, the political Battle of Chavez Ravine which was the relocation of Chavez Ravine's residents in order to build the Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium, etc.) through the newspaper clippings, Dave Klein is introduced. He and his partner George "Junior" Stemmons are setting up a raid on a house with a bookmaking operation running inside.
Klein and Stemmons are later ordered to protect the witness in the boxing probe. However, Mickey Cohen called Klein earlier and told him 'Sam G' ("G for Giancana") wanted the witness dead. Klein kills the witness, who has a mental disability, by throwing him out of a high window, making it look like an accident. The press headlines the story, "Federal Witness Plummets to Death," with a sidebar: "Suicide Pronouncement: 'Hallelujah, I Can Fly!'"
When Klein finally returns to his house, he reminisces on his life so far. Born David Douglas Klein, he is of German descent. His father Franz, arrived at Ellis Island. He was raised by both parents, and has a sister named Meg. However, the father was abusive towards his sister, and Klein, while still at a young age, threatened to kill his father if he hurt her again. After the children become adults, their parents die in a car accident. Klein and his sister shared an "attraction" to one another, and after their parent's death, they almost slept together. Klein joins the LAPD in 1938. In 1942, he enlists in the U.S. Marines and serves in the Pacific. and returns to the Department in 1945. Klein also studies law at University of Southern California. However the GI Bill won't cover the costs for school. Klein must run other jobs, from collecting on loans, (earning him the name, "the Enforcer"), to mob work. Klein rises through the police rank to Lieutenant, passes the bar, and secures his police pension. However, Klein isn't released from mob work, which included several murders. Two personal murders were of the "Two Tonys", Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino, who hurt Meg. He hides in the backseat of one of their cars and shoots them both in the back of the heads. In an attempt to get out of mob work, he begs the dying Jack Dragna to let him go. Dragna doesn't, and Klein suffocates him.
Wilhite, of the corrupt Narcotics Squad, calls Klein later that night and ask him to investigate a burglary. The burglary is at the house of J.C. Kafesjian, sanctioned drug dealer of the LAPD. The crime scene consists of dead dogs, missing their eyes and poisoned with stelfactiznide chloride (a chemical solution used in dry cleaning), smashed records, and torn pedal pushers covered with semen. Klein investigates as a favor to Wilhite.
In order to get liberal Democratic candidate Morton Diskant to drop out of the election for city councilman, Klein is ordered to blackmail Diskant. Klein receives assistance from Fred Turentine, and Pete Bondurant (who later appears in American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand). While the operation doesn't go smoothly, they successfully blackmail the married Diskant with another woman, and Diskant later drops out of the race.
Klein investigates the Kafesjian case with police work, forensic information, and other leads. Klein later gets a side job from Howard Hughes, to obtain information on an actress named Glenda Bledsoe that would violate her full-service contract. Since there is a morality clause in her contract, Klein merely needs to find proof that Bledsoe is an alcoholic, criminal, narcotics addict, communist, lesbian, or nymphomaniac. Hughes' reasons were she moved out of one of Hughes's guest houses, and left script sessions without permission. Klein sees through to the real motive for Hughes wanting her out. As Klein puts it: "'Guest home' meant 'fuck pad' meant Howard Hughes left to choke his own chicken."[2]
During surveillance of Glenda, he finds out she, Touch Vecchio, Rock Rockwell, and George Ainge are planning a fake kidnapping.
The reviews for White Jazz were quite positive. "Blacker than noir... Makes most other crime novels seem naive."--Publishers Weekly. "James Ellroy's latest book WHITE JAZZ makes previous detective fiction read like Dr. Seuss."--San Francisco Examiner. "Ellroy's tenth novel burns with the memory of Rodney King in its descriptions of unimaginably cruel law officers who are not merely tainted by corruption on a vast scale but pursue conventional police work as a sideline to more lucrative illegal activities that burst into the public consciousness in violent frenzies.... An undeniably artful frenzy of violence, guilt and unappeased self-loathing. Ellroy's crime fiction represents a high mark in the genre."--New York Newsday.[3]
Ellroy said in a September 2009 interview that "White Jazz is dead. All movie adaptations of my books are dead".[4]
James Ellroy completed a draft of a 131-page screenplay on October 31, 1997. In 1998, cinematographer Robert Richardson signed on for what would have been his directorial debut with Fine Line Features distributing. They put the project into turnaround in early 1999 due to budgetary concerns.[5] In early December 2001, it was reported that "German-based VIF Intl. Films had come aboard to finance White Jazz, co-producing with Nick Nolte's Kingsgate Films and L.A.-based production company Interlight. Nolte and John Cusack were set to star in the film, with Winona Ryder reportedly in discussions to join them. Nolte was to play Klein, Cusack to play Junior Stemmons and Ryder to play Hollywood starlet Glenda. Uma Thurman was also attached to the project at one point and was to play Glenda.[6] The screenplay was written by Ellroy and Christopher Cleveland. After the demise of the project, Richardson said "That's why directors go absolutely crazy – the development of a project is highly unpredictable and doesn't make tremendous sense. It may happen, but not in my time frame."[7]
On November 30, 2006, it was reported that George Clooney was set to star in a newly green-lit film adaptation of the novel for Warner Independent Pictures.[8] Clooney was also on board as producer along with his Smoke House partner Grant Heslov. The film was to be written by Matthew Michael Carnahan and directed by his brother Joe Carnahan. Both Jason Bateman and Peter Berg had signed on to appear in the film.[9] The script changes the Armenian Kafesjian family in the novel to the Mexican Magdalena family.[6] Joe Carnahan said this of his brother's script, "It’s, to me, what that book always was – the point of departure from the Eisenhower '50s to the psychedelic freakshow, Manson '60s. It’s a total combination of the two with a heavy, heavy voice-over narration, this kind of classic noir."[10] Carnahan had also confirmed that the characters of Ed Exley and Dudley Smith would not be in the film version despite their presence in the book,[11] as Regency Productions has its own plans for a sequel to L.A. Confidential[12] and asked the director to remove Exley from his screenplay as they own the rights to the character.[13] Instead, the Carnahans had constructed a "doppelganger" for Exley, "giving him all of [his] traits and speech patterns."[14]
Carnahan described his vision of White Jazz as reflecting the "kind of mid-century explosion of art and music, and really letting that be the kind of guiding force behind it, as opposed to making it like this ... all 'period suits'. I really want to try to make it as accurate a reflection of L.A. at that moment in time as I can."[15] He also commented on George Clooney's willingness to play an unlikable character for the first time. "He's made that very clear to me: 'I have no other desire than to play what's in that script.' And what's in that script is a pretty despicable guy at times, and pretty nefarious and nasty and selfish."[15] Carnahan also touched upon how he trimmed down the novel's numerous subplots because "I always thought that as much as I love White Jazz, it became almost unfilmable at some point, because there are so many strands, so much, and it became so psychotic ... that's what made it such a great book, but those things would not carry over into the filmic realm, I thought, with ease."[15]
Clooney has since dropped out of starring in the film due to scheduling conflicts with other projects.[16] Chris Pine, who was also up for a role in the film, decided to take on the role of James T. Kirk in J. J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek film.[16] Carnahan has stated that he will still make the film and has "a couple of options in terms of other actors that I am completely over the moon for."[16]
Carnahan has completed the last draft of the screenplay.[14]
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