White Jazz was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992, completing the L.A. Quartet with its darkest and most stylistically extreme volume. The novel is narrated in first person by Dave Klein — an LAPD lieutenant who is simultaneously a lawyer, a slumlord, a bagman for organized crime, and a killer. Klein’s voice is barely controlled hysteria: sentence fragments, half-thoughts, memories erupting involuntarily, a consciousness on the verge of disintegration.
Ellroy pushed his prose style further here than in any other novel. The telegraphic compression approaches a kind of criminal jazz — hence the title — in which meaning is communicated as much by rhythm and omission as by direct statement. Many readers find the style impenetrable; those who break through it discover a narrative of extraordinary power, a portrait of a man whose corruption is so total that he can no longer distinguish between the various roles he plays.
The plot — involving a series of burglaries, a murdered woman, political machinations around a freeway contract, and the LAPD’s internal investigations — is characteristically labyrinthine. But the real subject is Klein’s psychology: the cost of maintaining a double (or triple, or quadruple) life, and the moment when the compartments break down and everything floods together.
White Jazz was Ellroy’s last novel set in the 1950s. After completing the Quartet, he moved forward in time to the American Underworld trilogy, beginning with American Tabloid — a shift in scale from municipal to national corruption.
Collecting White Jazz
First edition (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1992): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in fine jacket: $75–$200
- Signed first edition: $200–$500
- Reading copy without jacket: $10–$25