Tea at Trianon: James Ellroy’s 'Red Sheet'

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

James Ellroy’s 'Red Sheet'

From Mark Judge at Hot Air:

As if right on cue, the great author James Ellroy is publishing a new novel in June. Red Sheet is the latest offering from the fantastic creator of L.A. Confidential and American Tabloid. Like other books, it has to do with Los Angeles, cops, drugs, fringe characters, politics, and corruption.
It is also a bracingly anti-communist novel, perhaps the most anti-communist work of fiction I have read since Mickey Spillane’s One Lonely Night. Knopf, Ellroy’s publisher, was kind enough to send me an advanced review copy. Out of respect for Ellroy, I will save a detailed review until closer to publication date, but for now let me just say that Red Sheet is a brilliant, powerful novel that should be read by every American. Set in 1962, it opens with a quote from Whittaker Chambers, vindicates Richard Nixon, and makes it clear that the American anti-communists of the last century were right-on in their opposition to this evil pseudo-religious cult.
In fact, let me quote directly from James Ellroy’s official page:
Red Sheet is an anti-communist novel. It stands foursquare in the tainted tradition of Ayn Rand and Mickey Spillane. Ellroy is out to scramble your long-held perceptions and force you into a state of jumped-up disavowal.
Red Sheet scorns the mock-martyred Hollywood Ten and ballyhoos the Blacklist and the ’47-’48 HUAC hearings. Red Sheet forces you to live within the twisted and oddly tender soul of Richard M. Nixon. Red Sheet spotlights the Spanish Civil War and atrocities committed by the commie-infested International Brigade, heretofore held as heroic. Red Sheet lionizes name-naming kingpin Whittaker Chambers and bestows kudos on ratfinks Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg.
(Read more.)