I see you'll be the host of the first episode of te new Court TV series "Murder by the Book," in which you explore a singularly distressing unsolved case — your mother's homicide, which occurred when you were 10. What led you to return to the subject now?

If I could abolish one concept from the parlance, it would be closure. My mother and I continue. The force of her — the pure, feminine, complex, ambiguous, bereaved force of her — drives me to this day.

It has been a decade since you recounted the story of her murder in "My Dark Places." But she seems to haunt your other novels as well, including your current trilogy in progress on the pre-Reagan American underworld.

What I like about the era I am writing about, meaning 1958 to 1972, is that the anti-Communism mandate justified virtually any kind of clandestine activity. I like exploring the mind-set of extreme expediency.

What about more contemporary forms of expediency, like the anti-terrorism measures practiced by the Bush administration?

I do not follow contemporary politics. I live in a vacuum. I don't read books. I don't read newspapers. I do not own a TV set or a cellphone or a computer. I spend my evenings alone, usually lying in the dark talking to women who aren't in the room with me.

You mean they're on the phone?

No. They're metaphysical. I brood. I brood about former women in my life. Potential future women in my life. I ignore the culture. I don't want it to impede, impair, interdict, suppress or subsume my imagination with extraneous influences.

Is this an act? Are you trying to pass yourself off as the sort of isolated sociopath who is a stock character in crime fiction?

No. I am not acting. There are times when I think it isn't quite kosher to be lying in the dark talking to women who aren't in the room with me. And it turns into a certain kind of hauntedness and loneliness. But by and large, I dig it.

Questions for James Ellroy
Interview by Deborah Solomon
The New York Times, November 5, 2006

I

Tuco almost missed reading the interview in the Times' Sunday Magazine.
What an odd person! he thought.
But, he had to admit, there was some similarity,
except his own evenings "alone" tend to include a horse, a fire
and no metaphysical women.
At least he doesn't talk to them.
Out loud.
The brooding though, that seems too close to home.

You’re oddly cheerful for a self-described hermit.

I am happy by and large. I work hard. And I love life. I am having a blast.

Questions for James Ellroy
Interview by Deborah Solomon
The New York Times, November 5, 2006

II

Ah, there's the escape hatch!
I'm no hermit!
Life is work.
Work is play.

Tuco looked over at his horse browsing in the meadow.
"How could this be anything else?!"
The horse looked up,
at him,
then back to browsing.

Tuco began to brood,
clouds built and sun hid.
His horse began to wander off
looking for sunny
sky.

"Why not closure?" Tuco said
softly.

III

"Well," he began to answer himself,
"where does closure lead one?

What if too soon?
As well as,
what if too late?"

The horse began to glance sideways at Tuco,
the gesturing and mumbling wasn't new
but there was a different color to the sound.

There was a sense of something,
what? The horse had no clue.
Something though,
something brewed slowly,
to a different pace,
taste,
and sky's
light.

Tuco was listening to himself
differently.
That which was done....

Art began to remake itself.
Within
Around
Tuco hummed

To himself.

IV

Tuco studied the photography, not sure if this image conveyed the full depth
of the actual life-size print.

The photographer spoke of risk:
"He advocated for uncovering corporate malfeasance
regardless of the consequences to one's personal welfare.
Both of these teachers wrestled with truth and beauty in their work
and they helped me understand the photographic issues better
as I took my first steps into the world of photography."

And writer said "I like exploring the mind-set of extreme expediency."
Double edged risk.
For each.

Yet polar opposites in terms of engagement
with the present
and its
quirks.

Tuco poured his evening coffee
and glanced past his horse.
Sunset,
color glinting off the mountain range in the east
while shadow climbs
down
the mountain range to the west.

He turns
toward the horse.
It's time to rest
in a bed
in a warm room.

Time for another change acted on
with purpose.

A good life?
Life is work.
Work is play.