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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
Mob violence; FBI brutality; murders and assassinations
Language
Very heavy
Pervasive strong language; Ellroy's signature staccato prose
Sexual Content
Some
Adult sexual content; some explicit scenes
Substance Use
Some
Drinking and drug use; period underworld culture
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The American power structure as a criminal enterprise; the corruption of every institution; the inevitability of the assassination
What this book is about
American Tabloid covers the period from 1958 to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, following three deeply compromised men — FBI agent Kemper Boyd, private detective Ward Littell, and enforcer Pete Bondurant — as they navigate the intersecting worlds of J. Edgar Hoover, the Kennedy family, Howard Hughes, and the Cuban exile community. James Ellroy's historical epic is written in staccato, machine-gun prose — a noir vision of American power as pure corruption.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Pervasive strong language — Ellroy's style
Mob and FBI violence throughout
The JFK assassination as the novel's endpoint
Reader Verification
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