A historical aside to everybody gushing over James Ellroy’s latest, “This Storm,” which opens with a speech from Father Coughlin’s supposed bootleg radio station in Mexico. (Coughlin was a notorious right-wing radio broadcaster of the 1930s who was silenced by Catholic superiors in 1939).
Did.
Not.
Happen. (See above).
And also, Coughlin said nothing about the U.S. declaring war on Japan (via the New York Times).
And also, also:
Let the record show that Ellroy’s text is nothing like Coughlin’s broadcasts, which are available on Archive.org.
I mean “waterlogged wetbacks?”
It’s worse on the jump: Full Ellroy in “Jew-inspired boondoggle…”
“our Jew-pawn president, Franklin “Double-Cross” Rosenfeld….”
Coughlin was off the air in 1941, so this is nothing but James Ellroy running his mouth and making things up. Can James Effing Ellroy get away with this sort of language? Seriously? Don’t tell me it’s art. Don’t tell me it’s history. It’s none of those things. It’s nothing but an incredibly offensive, racist rant. And yes, we all know how much Ellroy likes to be offensive and use naughty words.
The Demon Dog of American fiction? More like the Ted Nugent of long-winded, self-important crap.
ladailymirror.com 
Remind me again why I scrupulously research my books for years, when I could just “make crap up” and get them done cheaper and quicker?
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Very good post.
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Ellroy’s my favorite novelist, but yeah — he loves inserting historical characters into his works, and having them say or do outrageous things for dramatic effect, reality be damned. You’ve seen his treatment of civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, I take it?
(BTW — excellent research on the Black Dahlia case. I look forward to your book about it.)
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