The Big Nowhere

infobox Book |
name = The Big Nowhere
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition cover
author = James Ellroy
illustrator =
cover_artist = Jacket design by Barbara Buck
Jacket illustration by Stephen Peringer
country = United States
language = English
series = L.A. Quartet
genre = Novel, crime fiction
publisher = The Mysterious Press
release_date = September 1988
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover & paperback) and audio cassette
pages = 406 pp (first edition, hardcover)
isbn = ISBN 0-89296-283-6 (first edition, hardcover)
preceded_by = The Black Dahlia
followed_by = L.A. Confidential

"The Big Nowhere" is a 1988 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy, the second of the L.A. Quartet, a series of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles.

Plot

What begins in this novel as two separate tales eventually twists together into one, centered around the efforts of a LA Sheriff's Deputy to capture a brutal sex murderer while serving, somewhat reluctantly, as a decoy for a set-up to catch Communists in Hollywood. This young deputy, Danny Upshaw, finds himself on a ride that will force him to confront secrets he has kept his whole life, even from himself. Two other major characters, a disgraced former cop now working for both Howard Hughes and Mickey Cohen, and an ambitious LAPD lieutenant involved in a child custody case, try with varying success to do the right things in an environment of deception, paranoia and brutality.

The story begins on New Year's Eve, as 1949 turns to 1950, and creates a vivid portrait of Los Angeles during that era, from the bebop emanating from the jazz clubs on Central Avenue to the union battles facing the Hollywood studios. The entire story takes place in the aftermath of the notorious Sleepy Lagoon murder case and the resultant Zoot Suit Riots, an event that roiled LA for years.

Ellroy's spin on the story might not be entirely factual, but it ties the diverse strands of this wild story together. While the novel mocks opportunistic Red-baiting as a scam that benefited political careers and the fortunes of movie studio executives and mobsters, Ellroy is no easier on the film colony's Communists and fellow travelers, whom he depicts as decadent hypocrites, easily compromised into "naming names" in an effort to hide their own dirty secrets. As with most of Ellroy's fiction, he liberally employs the brutal slang of the times. Gays are "fruits," "homos," "nances"; blacks are "boogies" and "jigs" and their neighborhoods are all Darktown. "The Big Nowhere" is, in fact, a feast of vernacular, and Ellroy is brilliant at capturing the nuances of dialogue that denote class, race, and mindset.