My Dark Places

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 1997

Copyright © 1996 by James Ellroy

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Photographic credits:

Page 97: Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, UCLA

Library

Page 187: Kathleen Clark

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:

Ellroy, James, [date]

My dark places: an L.A. Crime memoir / by James Ellroy—1st ed.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-307-48851-0

1. Ellroy, James [date]—Family. 2. Novelists, American—20th century

—Family relationships. 3. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Social conditions.

4. Mothers and sons—California—Los Angeles.

5. Murder—California—Los Angeles. I. Title.

PS3555.L6274Z466 1996

813’.54—dc20

[B] 96-36673

CIP

Author photograph © Marion Ettlinger

Random House Web address: http://www.randomhouse.com/

v3.0