Troisème et dernier chapitre de la trilogie Underworld USA, après American Tabloid et American Death Trip.
Le livre couvre la période 1968-1973. Il est disponible aux Etats-Unis depuis le 22 septembre 2009.
Le choix de l'éditeur français, François Guérif, était au départ de conserver une certaine unité de titres entre les trois volumes de la trilogie. Par conséquent, le roman devait s'intituler American Madness.
Le roman est disponible en France depuis le 6 janvier 2010, soit 9 ans après le 2ème tome de la trilogie. 6 années avaient séparé les sorties d'American Tabloid et d'American Death Trip
Interview d'Octobre 2004 :
McDonald: How is that going? Are you fairly deep into the writing of volume three now?
Ellroy: Yeah, yeah. I’m deep into it. I’m not promising a delivery date but you know, it’s huge. It’s bigger than The Cold Six Thousand.
McDonald: I know you’ve said you want the three novels, literally, to be successively larger. I’m wondering how you sustain your concentration and your interest across this many years.
Ellroy: The interest is easy. The concentration … you need a very very strong superstructure. And you need the outlines that you and I discussed when we were in Ann Arbor that day (May 2001). You know, you need a big big super structure and the determination to make it work. Now, one of the big revelations for me, early on as a writer when I was into writing The Big Nowhere, was that I realized I could execute whatever I could conceive of.
McDonald: That’s … amazing. That’s stunning. That puts pressure on you, though. If you have that ability, you’ve got to use it … not lay back.
Ellroy: Yeah.
