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JAMES ELLROY

AFTERWORD

THIS BOOK WAS BOTH A LABOR OF LOVE AND A STONE GAS TO ASSEMBLE AND WRITE. YOU COULD TELL, COULDN’T YOU?

The work went down at the Los Angeles Police Museum—the LAPD’s former Northeast Station, in the former Mexican gang turf/current hipster hive of Highland Park. Glynn Martin spearheaded the effort. Joan Renner, Nathan Marsak, Mike Frantantoni, and Megan Martin put together the stunning photographs. These kats are the Museum’s most inspired volunteers; they brought a deep love for L.A. Then to their collating task. They supplied me with brilliantly concise crib sheets. Said sheets inspired my accompanying captions. All of us concocted the 1953-photographs-only concept. It stands as the book’s defining construction.

Some concept.

Some year.

I wish Then were Now.

Where’s William H. Parker now that we really need him?

Demonic humor infused our work sessions. Why mince words, or mince at all? Glynn was born into kop komedy—while Joan, Nathan, Meg, and I came at it sideways. Los Angeles cops are the greatest oral historians and bullshit artists in world annals, and LAPD ’53 is fully intended to express the right-wing absurdist world-view that so often informs their stories. Death and yuks a heartbeat apart. You’ve gotta look and you’ve gotta laff.

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America’s greatest police department has always been America’s most pictorially depicted and dramatically portrayed police department. We can thank the proximity of the Hollywood film studios and the reign of film noir for that. This means that thanks are also due to André De Toth, Billy Wilder, Sterling Hayden, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Aldrich, John Alton, and numerous other denizens of the deep-focus deep. Among our creative antecedents, special nite howls go out to Joseph Wambaugh, the creator of the modern police novel, and Jack Webb, television’s first great auteur—and the most generous friend and civilian supporter the LAPD has ever known.

David Cashion and Deborah Aaronson of Abrams Image are the Wambaugh and Webb of this generation. LAPD ’53 is a rugged tome for the wrapped-tight and raucously reactionary. David and Deborah provided adroit advice and guidance every step of the way—even as I’m sure they were cringing. They should receive special Get-Out-Of-Jail and Frame-Your-Publishing-Enemies cards from LAPD—signed by all of us who worked on this book.

James Ellroy
1/5/15