Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences,[2] and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A.

[8] Ellroy later described his mother as "sharp-tongued [and] bad-tempered",[9] unable to keep a steady job, alcoholic, and sexually promiscuous.

[10] His father was more permissive and allowed Ellroy to do as he pleased, namely be "left alone to read, to go out and peep through windows, prowl around and sniff the air.

The murder, along with reading The Badge by Jack Webb (a book comprising sensational cases from the files of the Los Angeles Police Department, a birthday gift from his father), were important events of Ellroy's youth.

Nicknamed the "Black Dahlia," Short was a young woman murdered in 1947, her body cut in half and discarded in Los Angeles, in a notorious and unsolved crime.

His "Crazy Man Act", as Ellroy describes it, was a plea for attention and got him beat up and eventually expelled from Fairfax High School in 11th grade, after ranting about Nazism in his English class.

After serving some time in jail and suffering from pneumonia, during which he developed an abscess on his lung "the size of a large man's fist," Ellroy stopped drinking and began working as a golf caddie while pursuing writing.

He is a self-described recluse who possesses very few technological amenities, including television, and claims never to read contemporary books by other authors, aside from Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field, out of concern that they might influence his own.

[34] He often employs a sort of telegraphese (stripped-down, staccato-like sentence structures), a style that reaches its apex in The Cold Six Thousand.

Rather than removing any subplots, Ellroy abbreviated the novel by cutting every unnecessary word from every sentence, creating a unique style of prose.

[35] The Black Dahlia, for example, fused the real-life murder of Elizabeth Short with a fictional story of two police officers investigating the crime.

After publishing American Tabloid, Ellroy began a memoir, My Dark Places, based on his memories of his mother's murder, the unconventional relationship he had with her, and his investigation of the crime.

[9] In the memoir, Ellroy mentions that his mother's murder received little news coverage because the media were still fixated on the stabbing death of mobster Johnny Stompanato, who was dating actress Lana Turner.

Frank C. Girardot, a reporter for The San Gabriel Valley Tribune, accessed files on Geneva Hilliker Ellroy's murder from detectives with Los Angeles Police Department.

"[37] In 2008, The Library of America selected the essay "My Mother's Killer" from My Dark Places for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.

[45] Photography from the museum's archives are presented alongside Ellroy's writings about crime and law enforcement during that era.

In his hard-bitten style, Ellroy raves that "'A Rage in Harlem' features a mind-mauling array of chump-change hustles, lurid larcenies, and malicious mischief.

[55] In media appearances, Ellroy has adopted an outsized, stylized public persona of hard-boiled nihilism and self-reflexive subversiveness.

[31] He frequently begins public appearances with a monologue such as: Good evening peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps.

I'm James Ellroy, the demon dog with the hog-log, the foul owl with the death growl, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick.

These books will leave you reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed.

[31][63] In 2019, Ellroy described himself as anti-totalitarian, conservative, and a Tory, adding "Underneath my profane exterior, I'm very concerned with decorum, with probity, with morality, and I have a painfully developed conscience.

"[66] Similarly, in the film Feast of Death, his (now ex-) wife describes his politics as "bullshit", an assessment to which Ellroy responds only with a knowing smile.

He stated that he voted for Barack Obama,[66] though later denied doing so, while adding that most of his statements on modern politics are willful misrepresentations.

He has called Hillary Clinton a "bull dyke in a pantsuit", compared John McCain to Mr. Magoo, Joe Biden to Daffy Duck, and said that "Obama looks like a f---ing lemur, a little rodent-like creature, a marsupial or something.

"[72] On President Donald Trump, Ellroy stated that he "doesn't have the charm of a true, world-class dictator", but also understands his appeal, as "He's the big 'fuck you' to all pieties.

[34] In September 2008, Daily Variety reported that HBO, along with Tom Hanks's production company, Playtone, was developing American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand for either a miniseries or ongoing series.

"[82] In a November 2012 interview, when asked about how movie adaptations distort his books, he remarked, "[Film studios] can do whatever the [fuck] they want as long as they pay me.

[83] In an October 2017 interview with The New York Times, Tom Hanks stated he would be interested in playing the part of Lloyd Hopkins if a film or stage adaptation was put into production.

[84] In February of 2024, it was reported Ellroy had signed on with Hollywood talent agency UTA and that producers were shopping a film adaption of his then-latest novel The Enchanters around.