A raw, explicit memoir as high-intensity and riveting as any of Ellroy's novels. The theme: the author's obsessive pursuit of women.

As fascinating as it is at times utterly disturbing.- "Entertainment Weekly Crime writer James Ellroyâ's most compelling mystery story has always been his own . . . But "The Hilliker Curse" is not meant to be merely a confession. It is an act of creation . . . There's a truth of feeling in it, too, an underlying sense of what it is actually like to live in the vortex of an impossible yearning . . . Ellroy is expert and relentless at dramatizing the effects [of his obsession]. - "Wall Street Journal" This latest book is Ellroy's most intimate and personal . . . It's forceful and unsparing in its revelations . . . [His sentences] make you grateful to read his prose, with its marvelous fury, passion and energy. They also compel you to keep rooting for him. - "San Francisco Chronicle"