I'm trying to be less bombastic. I love my books. I think I've done things nobody else has done.

We do. Or re-create the ones we have, and project. My whole life is projection.

Anything less than total candor was bullshit. I owed that to my readers, I owed that to myself, and I owed that most specifically to my mother. I've had some thrilling moments in my 18-year literary career to this point, and nothing comes close to giving Geneva Hilliker Ellroy, the farm girl from Tunnel City, Wisconsin, to the world.

My role relationship to the event will continue to mutate. My relationship to my mother will continue to change as I revise my judgments of her depending on what I learn about her. It goes on. But I feel no less obsessive about my work and no less passionately committed to the life I have now, but I feel poised inside. Which is a good thing to feel at 48.

How did I change my life? I wanted things. I wanted women and I wanted to write books.

Joe Wambaugh's a friend. I know him only casually, but I like him a lot. I think he likes my books.

I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.