American Tabloid
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4,1 • 14 valutazioni
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- 7,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
«Erano sbirri corrotti e artisti del ricatto. Erano intercettatori, soldati di fortuna e cabarettisti froci. Se solo un istante delle loro esistenze avesse imboccato un percorso diverso, la storia americana come noi la conosciamo non sarebbe esistita.» J. Edgar Hoover, capo dell'FBI. Jimmy Hoffa, presidente del sindacato dei trasporti. Howard Hughes, editore miliardario. Robert Kennedy, senatore. John F. Kennedy, senatore e poi presidente degli Stati Uniti. Tra il 1958 e il 1963 questi erano gli uomini che tenevano in pugno l'America. Ma erano anche i protagonisti di una guerra sporca e segreta, affidata a spie corrotte e trafficanti di droga, a killer e prostitute. Mai così amaro, mai così violento, James Ellroy racconta, nuda e cruda, la storia di un'America senza eroi. Un'America che ha perso anche il ricordo dell'onore e dell'innocenza.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although it follows his L.A. Trilogy chronologically, Ellroy's visceral, tightly plotted new novel unfolds on a much wider stage, delivering a compelling and detailed view of the American underworld from the late 1950s to the assassination of JFK. Demythologizing the Camelot years, Ellroy (White Jazz) depicts a nexus of renegade government agencies, mobsters, industrial tycoons and Hollywood players fueling the rise and fall of the Kennedy administration. The story hinges on the entanglements of three 40-something government mercenaries who play major, behind-the-scenes roles in such events as the Bay of Pigs and the assassination of the president. Suave and sybaritic Kemper Boyd pimps for JFK while carrying out simultaneous undercover work for the CIA, FBI, Robert Kennedy and the Mob. Hulking, sadistic ex-L.A. cop Pete Bondurant, a hired killer for Jimmy Hoffa, digs dirt for a drug-addled Howard Hughes while training a cadre of bloodthirsty, anti-Castro Cuban exiles off the Florida Coast. Idealistic FBI wiretapper Ward Littel, following a series of disastrous anti-Mafia operations, becomes a Machiavellian mob lawyer. All three rub shoulders with an enormous cast of real-life characters, including clever, two-dimensional portraits of the Kennedy family, J. Edgar Hoover and Jack Ruby. Exercising his muscular, shorthand prose, Ellroy moves the narrative from break-in to lurid assignation to brutal hit job in a tightening gyre that culminates in the murder of the president. While not especially convincing as revisionist history, this is a cool and riveting evocation of a cultural epoch abounding in government surveillance, endemic corruption and yellow journalism. BOMC and QPB selections; author tour.
