Gravy Train by James Ellroy

Originally published 1990 in The Armchair Detective, this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

MA15+

Considered unsuitable for persons under 15 years of age; legally restricted

(L, S, D, V, N)

Coarse Language {M} {slurs}

A Sex Scene {M}

Drug References {M}

Violence {MA15+}

Nudity {M}

Representations

Gender:

First-person male narration. Female characters evaluated in context of their attractiveness to him.

Sex:

Narrator responding to women primarily through the lens of his attraction to them. One character is a lesbian; another character fakes attraction to con her.

Race & Ethnicity:

Narrator casually introduces the people he supervises via a list of anglophone racial slurs (no names). Also uses some Yiddish racial slurs. In fact, ethnicity entirely marked by slurs and slang terms, including the narrator's marking himself as Jewish.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

No mention.

Awards

None found.

Notes

Despite what the rating may suggest, this story was a lot of fun (one source found while writing this described it as a spoof of hard-boiled fiction from the '40s and '50s, which seems apt). Probably give his books a shot on my reading tour.