The Hilliker Curse is a new memoir/psychoanalysis session by James Ellroy. Ellroy clearly has a fascination with and issues around the murder of his mom. His previous memoir, My Dark Places (review), dealt with Ellroy hiring a private investigator to find our who killed his mother, Jean Hilliker, 40 years after her murder. The investigation was the framing device around a history of his life. The Hilliker Curse is slightly different view into Ellroy’s life, this time through his relationship with women.

James Ellroy has never had what you could call a stable personal life. Even from a young age, his parent’s relationship issues started him down a path that he never really recovered from. At a young age, Ellroy loved his Mom and wanted to be his Dad. After the divorce, he started hating his Mom because he couldn’t go live with his Dad. With the murder, he got everything he wanted (Mom gone, living with Dad), but the relationship with his Mom haunted him for years.

The book is an alternate take on Ellroy’s life. This time it’s viewed through his relationship with women. He counts and recounts all the love, sex and mistakes, sometimes in more detail than strictly necessary, of his love for and problems with every woman he’s had a relationship with. The book feels more like an output of a psychoanalysis session then a true memoir and can get a little repetitive after a while. Ellroy doesn’t just fall in love, he obsesses over every relationship and potential relationship. At times it feels more like a stalker talking about some women then a man who loves her. And when, at the end, Ellroy says he’s happy with where and who he’s with know, it almost feels like the end of a chapter more than the end of a story. We know that his issues, no matter how much he’s dealt with them, can pop up again and destroy yet another relationship.

The book is not really for everyone. It’s an interesting look inside one of my favorite writers. It’s no coincidence that The Black Dahlia (review) was Ellroy’s first great book, it was a story that had sat with him for decades due to the similarities to his mother’s murder. The book shows some of what’s went into that story and also how the women in his latest novel, Blood’s A Rover, are based on real relationships he’s had. As background material, it’s nice to read, but I wouldn’t recommend this to most people. It’s interesting, but not Ellroy’s usual subject matter. Mildly Recommended.