A shocking real-crime story
Geneva Hilliker Ellroy, a 43-year-old divorcee, was strangled by a person or persons unknown in June 1958. Her semi-naked body, with a nylon stocking around her neck, was found the next day dumped near the local high school. James Ellroy was 10 years old when his mother was murdered. In White Jazz he re-visits the nightmare of the still unsolved crime. He traces his writing back through the drinking, drugs and prison terms to this central nightmare of his life, around which his fiction revolves. This powerful and revealing programme takes the viewer into the mind of the ‘demon dog of American literature’.
