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Thursday, June 14, 2012
Charles Rzepka Interviews with Elmore 2009-2010
Elmore Leonard is a crucial figure in any consideration of the development of crime writing in the twentieth century, and he is arguably, as Martin Amis suggests, the closest thing America has to “a national novelist”. In a career that spans sixty years, over forty novels and numerous screenplays and short stories, he has established himself as the best-known crime fiction writer in America and as so vigorous a creative presence that he transcends the categories of popular generic fiction. When he was awarded USA PEN Lifetime Achievement award, PEN praised the “distinct literary style” Leonard has created, suggesting that “books like Swag, LaBrava, Freaky Deaky and Tishomingo Blues are not only classics of the crime genre, but some of the best writing of the last half century.”
