The Best Of 1995: BOOKS

FICTION

1 AMERICAN TABLOID by James Ellroy (Knopf). This big, brazenly entertaining novel begins in 1958 and ends seconds before the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas. In between, James Ellroy--a crime-noir cult writer making his mainstream debut--propels two rogue FBI agents and a former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff through a fictionalized, nightmarish tour of five tumultuous years in U.S. history. Life is seldom horrifying and hilarious at the same moment. On nearly all its 576 pages, American Tabloid manages to be both.

2 SABBATH'S THEATER by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin) explores the beginnings of geezerhood (Roth's resolutely obnoxious...

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