Western Avenue between Beverley and Wilshire and the blocks surrounding it constitute the old neighborhood. Situated two miles west of downtown LA and a mile south of Hollywood, there is nothing exceptional about it. The prosaic thrust of the ordinary lives lived there produced nothing during my formative years but an inordinate amount of male children, a good portion of whom assumed roles emblematic of the tortured 60s ; Vietnam veteran, drug addict, college activist, burned-out corpse.
Brown's Requiem
James Ellroy
1981
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