Photograph by Leslie Anne Wiggins / Los Angeles Times

Leslie Anne Wiggins writes: The L.A. Times’ Patt Morrison gave the audience appropriate warning
before James Ellroy’s loud and expletive-filled speech at the Book
Festival Sunday: “Seat belts fastened low and tight? All right, you’re
gonna need 'em.”

Ellroy didn't disappoint. The crime writer, whom Morrison called a
“snazzy and dapper fellow,” thanked the audience for coming out, rather
than staying home to tend to their “sex lives and drug habits.” He
opened with his trademark crowd welcome to the “peepers, prowlers,
pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps.” 

And then he exploded with a rather hard-to-follow speech, calling
his forthcoming book "Blood's a Rover"  “the greatest novel since the
Holy Bible.”

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