Perfidia (Ellroy novel)

This article is about the 2014 novel. For other uses, see Perfidia (disambiguation).
Perfidia

First edition cover
Author James Ellroy
Cover artist Jacket design by Chip Kidd
Country United States
Language English
Series The Second L.A. Quartet
Genre Crime fiction, noir, historical fiction
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf, William Heinemann Ltd/Cornerstone (Waterstones's edition)
Publication date
 September 9, 2014, September 11, 2014 (Waterstones's edition)
Media type Print (hardback and paperback), audio CD, audio download, and Kindle
Pages 720 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-307-95699-6 (first edition, hardcover), ISBN 978-0-434-02052-2 (Waterstones's edition, hardcover), ISBN 978-0385-35321-2 (eBook)
OCLC 866615100
813'/.54—dc23
LC Class PS3555.L6274P47 2014

Perfidia is a historical and crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. Published in 2014, it is the first novel in The Second L.A. Quartet,[1] referring to his four prior novels from the first L.A. Quartet. Ellroy dedicated Perfidia "To LISA STAFFORD". The epigraph is "Envy thou not the oppressor, And choose none of his ways. -Proverbs 3:31". Ellroy also includes the definition of Fifth Column. Janson is the typeface for Perfidia.

Perfidia was released September 9, 2014. A Waterstones exclusive limited edition of Perfidia was released September 11, 2014, and includes an essay by Ellroy himself titled "Ellroy's History – Then and Now."[2] The main characters of Perfidia are Hideo Ashida, a Japanese LAPD chemist, Kay Lake, a young woman looking for adventure, the real life William H. Parker, a gifted LAPD captain with a drinking problem, and Dudley Smith, an LAPD sergeant born in Dublin, Ireland, and raised in Los Angeles. The novel is told in real-time, covering twenty-three days with the dates and the time the chapters and events are occurring, as well as through Kay Lake's diary. An entry from Kay Lake's diary begins Perfidia, followed by a bootleg transmitter radio broadcast on Friday, December 5, 1941, being broadcast by real life Gerald L. K. Smith. The first chapter introduces the reader to Hideo Ashida, on Saturday, December 6, 1941, at 9:08 a.m. Since many fictional and real life characters appear in Perfidia, many from his prior novels, Ellroy added a Dramatis personæ, which notes the previous appearances of characters in Perfidia, as well as short summaries for some of the characters.

Reviews and Reception

Perfidia was on The New York Times Best Sellers list for Hardcover Fiction at number sixteen on September 28, 2014.[3] It also was an Editors' Choice at The New York Times on September 12, 2014.[4] Perfidia was also one of the eighty books nominated for the 2015 Folio Prize by the Folio Prize Academy.[5]

Historical inaccuracies

The UK hardback edition contains two historical errors. Firstly, the LAPD have a tape recorder that is small enough to fit in a woman's handbag and apparently record a conversation (no such machine existed at the time), and secondly there is a reference to a radio receiver used by Japanese agents that has a faulty transistor (the transistor had not yet been invented). The second error could easily be removed by replacing 'transistor' with 'valve', but the first one renders part of the plot impossible.

References

  1. ↑ Hooper, Mark (8 September 2014). "James Ellroy's American Tabloid: will it ever make it to the big screen?". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  2. ↑ http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/james+ellroy/perfidia+-+waterstones+exclusive+edition/10289447/. Retrieved 10 September 2014
  3. ↑ "Best Sellers - The New York Times". http://www.nytimes.com. The New York Times. 28 September 2014. Retrieved 28 June 2015. External link in |website= (help)
  4. ↑ "Editors' Choice - The New York Times". http://www.nytimes.com. The New York Times. 12 September 2014. Retrieved 28 June 2015. External link in |website= (help)
  5. ↑ Flood, Alison (15 December 2014). "Folio prize reveals 80 titles in contention for 2015 award". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 18 June 2015.

External links


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