>From: "Dennis Perrin" <dperrin at comcast.net>
>Now,
>Ellroy is pretty conservative politically, but how can you not like a guy
>who sees things the way they are?
>
>What kind of conservative is he? It doesn't come across in his books, which I've enjoyed immensely.
>Tahir
>
Ellroy's an iconoclast; he goes with what he likes and dislikes, and if
it doesn't fit on "side" or the other, well, so be it. As he put it, he
writes about "bad white men doing bad things in the name of authority."
They're repelling and fascinating, like Tony Soprano, or the crew of
_24_, or the creeps populating Oliver Stone's _JFK_.
It's odd, but writers with a strong conservative streak seem to have a better handle on these kinds of characters. One of my favorite writers is George MacDonald Fraser, who writes the _Flashman_ novels as well as some other wonderful reads. The books are great fun, they have trenchant and cutting observations on the British Empire... but the main character's a complete creep, and Fraser's politics are a _lot_ more right-wing than mine. Or take Christopher Buckley. He's definitely in the conservative crowd, but his books are small gems. One gathers that neither John D. MacDonald or Andrew Vachss would have felt at home at a _Four Walls, Eight Windows_ booksigning. Joseph Heller was definitely on the Left, but I know a lot of conservatives who love _Catch-22_.
And I'm sure we've all had conversations with people who project writers they dislike into the "other side." I've run into any number of people who assert that Stephen King is a "conservative," despite his long record of supporting liberal causes.
Personally, when a writer tries to make overt political points, their work starts to suck _big_ time. Ursula Le Guin isn't quite as didactic as Jerry Pournelle, but there's that deformity-of-story that turns up when the writer is trying to convince the reader of his or her Big Ideas.
In general, it's nice to know what a writer really thinks, but that shouldn't keep anyone from enjoying their work.