James Ellroy Teaming With Audio Up to Adapt His Novel AMERICAN TABLOID Into Scripted Podcast

American crime fiction writer James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia) has announced his team up with Audio Up to adapt his novel American Tabloid into a scripted podcast. It was announced in April that Ellroy was working on the true crime audio series Hollywood Death Trip, so this is his second foray into the podcast medium.

Here’s the story rundown:

The book which forms the basis of his Underworld USA trilogy, tells the fictional story of JFK’s murder from the point of view of those who killed him. The cast of characters is a rogue’s gallery of bloodthirsty Cuban Exiles, rogue CIA operatives, mafia killers, pimps, shakedown men and FBI Agents all chasing money, sex and power.

American Tabloid blasts a bullet hole into the myth of American innocence and hope that pervaded the Eisenhower years and was exemplified by Kennedy’s Camelot. In Ellroy’s hands, JFK is transmogrified into “Bad Back Jack” an underhung playboy with a penchant for call-girls, amphetamines and the power derived from his father’s money. It’s RFK, in Ellroy’s telling, who is the moral center, but seals his brother’s fate and that of the family by chasing the mob and Jimmy Hoffa. Inserted into this milieu is a morphine addicted Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, the Chicago Outfit and a low rent twist queen who becomes their ticket to blackmail. They all converge in Dallas to rub up against history and watch the world spin. This is American history torched and served up a la carte as the truth.

Ellroy will adapt the 12-part audio project himself with Audio Up’s CCO Jimmy Jellinek. The series, which will be exec produced by Gutstadt, Jellinek and COO Phil Alberstat, will launch on July 4, 2022. Casting will begin immediately.

Ellroy is already working with Audio Up on Hollywood Death Trip, which will debut on October 8.