I couldn't be more excited to delve into the last book in James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy, Blood's A Rover (available now), but as I was gearing up for last night's book tour opener at the Strand, I was reminded that Ellroy easily has the worst signature going, or at least the worst in my collection. Al Pacino's is likely the closest contender, but I've seen worse versions than the one that I got. Plus, at least he was in a rush. Ellroy has no problem personalizing and chatting you up while he's signing (though I now tend to keep my conversations with him to a minimum...once he told me I shouldn't be wearing a hat indoors unless I'm bald and a few other times--including last night--he's insisted I call him "Dog" rather than "Mr. Ellroy"), but his signature remains consistently perplexing. Let's take a look at the autographs in my Underworld USA trilogy.
I probably should've quit after getting my first book of his signed 12 years ago. That one has one of the greatest inscriptions of all time, and was preceded by him kissing the picture of his dog on the book's jacket.
The Cold Six Thousand brought a signature worse than usual. As I recall, I was pretty far back in line, so maybe he was tired.
And last night, I got some special added lines underneath the signature. Exciting!
Anyway, sloppy autograph aside, he's a good writer (though his machine-gun sentence style aint for everyone, and, occasionally, aint for me). And a helluva entertaining guy. So check out his books sometime. I'm pretty sure I can forge his signature if you want those books signed.
And, for kicks, here's Dog on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 1997:
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