By John Soltes / Editor in Chief

(Sept. 17, 2009) — James Ellroy loves women. He loves their mystery, their history, their bodies and their minds. They inspire his prose. They haunt his dreams. I’m not sure he would have it any other way.

Ellroy, or “Dog” to his friends, is the harbinger of neo-noir. His novels, from “L.A. Confidential” to “American Tabloid” to his soon-to-be-released “Blood’s a Rover,” are often expositions on what he calls the private nightmares of public policy.

He writes in pithy, concise sentences — almost to prove a point that his character’s emotional arcs deserve the extra periods and commas.

He talks similarly. To illustrate his body of work, he will lace together his original humor — call it the antithesis of self-deprecation — with his penchant for strung-together phrases. His is a carefully chosen vocabulary.

“Blood’s a Rover” completes a trilogy for Ellroy (the first two novels being “American Tabloid” and “The Cold Six Thousand”) — three books that dissect the underbelly of American history from 1958 to the end of the Nixon administration. This latest installment, which runs a sprightly 656 pages, delves into the subjects of black militancy, the mob’s interests to build casinos in the Dominican Republic and the aftermath of the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

To call the novel a usual Ellroy mind-bender would be wrong. For though the author continues with his trademark three-protagonist means of storytelling, Ellroy, often cited for his brash, no-holds-barred choice of words, has found the feminine touch. In “Blood’s a Rover,” the three leading men — Dwight Holly, Donald Crutchfield and Wayne Tedrow Jr. — are all enraptured by the beguiling red goddess, Joan Klein.

Never before has the “Demon Dog” dealt with women in such a manner. Ellroy has previously outlined his own mother’s unsolved murder case in the memoir “My Dark Places,” and in many ways, his characters have been haunted irreparably by the women in their lives — much like the author himself.

But “Rover” is different. “Rover” pulls back the shade and tries peeping into the most intimate, emotionally revealing aspects of not only Klein but also her acquaintance, Karen Sifakis. It’s admittedly a voyeuristic gander, but one that sets “Rover” apart from Ellroy’s repertoire.

Recently, Ellroy spoke extensively with The Leader on the new book and his old obsessions.

Did you have any concept of ‘Blood’s a Rover’ when you wrote ‘American Tabloid’?

No, I did not. I set it up for ‘The Cold Six Thousand’ to be my big novel of the American 1960s, and when I finished ‘The Cold Six Thousand,’ I went on a book tour of epic proportions and, why mince words, had a crack up.

I was just out on the road for five months and lost it, and took some time off to regroup. And all of the plot indicators were there in ‘The Cold Six Thousand’ and I knew they could be made into a wonderful work of art in ‘Blood’s a Rover,’ but here’s some things that had to happen first.

One, life had to kick the s*** out of me, and I needed some time off. I had been working way too hard for way too many years. Full-time journalism, full-time fiction writing, writing movies and TV.

I was neglecting my marriage. My marriage went down. Although Helen Knode (fellow novelist) and I remain tremendously great friends. And Helen admired ‘The Cold Six Thousand,’ but thought it was too long, thought it was too rigorous, too stylistically difficult in its presentation of a very complex text, and I needed to get back to my emotional heart and write a more explicated style.

And I knew she was right. And then I bombed up to San Francisco after the marriage ended and fell in love with a college professor, a left-wing, Jewish, atheist woman named Joan. She and I ended badly. Nevertheless, I dedicated the book to her. Learned a great deal.

And so I had the idea of a leftist shadow figure who becomes the deus ex machina of four years of American history. And so everything was set up from the previous book: Jay Edgar Hoover going into his dotage, he’s elderly and in failing health. Dwight Holly is introduced in ‘The Cold Six Thousand’ as a minor character. Wayne Tedrow continues. I had Crutchfield (based on one of Ellroy’s friends).

The mob wants to plant casinos in a dictator-friendly region. For the longest time I thought it would be Nicaragua.

I don’t know much about geography, and I had left it open for the Dominican Republic. Well, guess what? I thought the Dominican Republic adjoined Guatemala and Honduras in Central America. Au contraire. It’s on the island of Hispaniola, adjoining Haiti.

Holy s***, it opens up the whole world to me. Yet more right-wing nuts. ... There was no discernible Richard Nixon policy toward the Dominican Republic. We had our puppet Joaquin Balaguer solidly in place. ... And you had black militancy and you had Haiti and you had voodoo herbs and all that crazy s***. And boy this is an Ellroy book if ever there was one.

The character of Joan is an interesting one and really propels the plot.

You know my personal background. The original feminine persona haunts me. And I’ve been driven by it all my life. And I have a memoir, the first three parts are out in Playboy, called ‘The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women.’ It’ll be a Knopf book next year.

And the idea that solving the riddle of this woman, who she is, who she was ... and that it’s a virginal young man in his early 20s (Crutchfield), a tail artist, a voyeur, a peeper, who is out to do this, I mean this is the symbolism of my life. This is the symbolism of my life. And so I attributed the symbolism of my life to Don Crutchfield.

In the book you mention the themes of ‘private nightmare of public policy’ and ‘doing nothing or doing everything.’

What we’re talking about there is political activism, and the necessity of revolutionary change. And if this book is as I suspect it will be considered, au courant, I find it very, very, very ironic that I wrote the book in a cultural vacuum. And that it is in no way influenced by the ascent of Barack Obama, Bush, the war in Iraq. And I will vigorously refuse to answer questions along that line.

And I will tell you voluntarily what a lot of people will ask me. I don’t watch TV. I don’t read. I didn’t follow the election. I’ve got eyes. I overheard people talking in the restaurant, and I can see the whole damn thing before the current president was elected to the U.S. Senate.

It’s a very hopeful book. It’s a very, very hopeful book. So it’s very interesting to me, it’s about all it’s worth that a rookie black senator and profoundly inexperienced, given that he was elected to the Senate in 2004 and only then spent 159 days in the well voting, I suspect he’s been running for president since he’s inhabited his crib, came to power concurrent with my writing this great novel. So there you go. It’s not meant to be au courant.

But Joan ... I almost called her by her correct surname, this Joan Klein tells Don Crutchfield, ‘Crutchfield, your options are do everything or do nothing.’ And I believe that. This is my most conscious work of art; it’s my most Christian work of art; it’s my most sexual work of art; and it’s a matriarchy. It’s about women with children. It’s about women who are stronger and more resourceful than the men that they love who mediate their lives with the men as well as the rearing of the children and careers of their own. This is the story of a man, Dwight Holly, who is in love with two women, equally and concurrently, and a time in our recent history where s*** like that was condoned.

Was it difficult to write from a female perspective?

No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t frankly because I’m a great genius. And this s*** doesn’t come easily for me, but I grasp for it and I get it. Karen Sifakis was based on a married woman I had a relationship with, and I actually in an earlier draft used the woman’s correct first name and had to change the name of her two daughters at the proper time.

Do you look back on the 1960s with a cynical eye?

Not a cynical one, because I love history. And I’ve got no grievance. That was a point of contention between the real Joan and me. I’ve got no beef man. I’ve got no beef. I dig history.

And Joan would say, ‘Well, let’s see, you’re a right-wing, WASP, heterosexual male, born at mid-century. Of course you would have no beef.’ I would say, ‘Well, I grew up poor, and went from being poor to being well-off.’ I still have no beef. I’ve got no beef. I’ve got no prejudice here. Although I’m quite judgmental in many, many ways and rigorous in my beliefs, I can spread empathy around promiscuously.

How much research goes into a book like this?

I always hire researchers. I hate research. ... I don’t like to travel. I don’t travel for pleasure. I can afford to hire researchers. I sent a friend of mine to the Dominican Republic. She took pictures. She went to the edge of the Massacre River, looked over into Haiti. Haiti is horribly dangerous, impoverished and full of disease. You shouldn’t travel there. She didn’t. I made it up.

Excited for the upcoming book tour?

It’s going to be fun. I’m fit. I’m healthy. I’m looking forward to it. ... I’m going to be funny. It’s going to be good. It’s going to be good.

James Ellroy’s “Blood’s a Rover” will be released Tuesday, Sept. 22. On that same day, he will appear at The Strand bookstore at 828 Broadway in New York City to sign autographs and read from the novel. The event begins at 7 p.m.