Saturday, January 03, 2009
Donald Westlake interview with Elmore in May, 2007
On Writing, a publication of the Writer’s Guild of America East, conducted an interview with Elmore and the late, great Donald Westlake when Elmore was in New York for his Up on Honey’s Room tour in May of 2007. This is a rare glimpse of two great writers and friends talking about their craft. I had completely forgotten about this interview, which was published over a year later. Elmore hadn’t even seen it in published form. Thanks to John McFetridge for bringing this oversight to our attention.
Click here for the PDF of the August, 2008 issue of On Writing. The interview begins on page 3.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Prolific mystery writer Donald Westlake dead at 75
Elmore is saddened by the death of his friend, Donald Westlake.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Westlake, a prolific author considered one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States, has died. He was 75.
Westlake collapsed from an apparent heart attack as he headed to New Year’s Eve dinner while vacationing in Mexico, his wife, Abigail, told the New York Times.
In a lengthy career that spanned a half-century, Westlake won three Edgar Awards, an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay “The Grifters” and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993. His first novel, “The Mercenaries,” was published by Random House in 1960.
Westlake wrote more than 90 books — mostly on a typewriter. Aside from his own name, he also used several pseudonyms — including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Edwin West — in part because people didn’t believe he could write so much so quickly.
“In the beginning, people didn’t want to publish more than one book a year by the same author,” Susan Richman, his publicist at Grand Central Publishing, told the Times.
In recent years, Westlake wrote only under his name and Richard Stark, author of a dark, spare series about a one-named sociopath called Parker. More than 15 of his books were made into movies, and he wrote a number of screenplays, including “The Grifters,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991.
Westlake continued to write until he died. His latest novel, “Get Real,” is scheduled to be released in April 2009.
Donald Edwin Westlake was born July 12, 1933, in Brooklyn but was raised in Yonkers and Albany. He attended several colleges in New York but did not graduate from any of them.
He married his current wife, Abigail, in 1979, and the couple made their home in Gallatin, N.Y. He is survived by his wife, four sons from his previous marriage, three stepchildren and four grandchildren.
Stick Review - “I can’t imagine ever getting tired of reading his stuff”
Andrew Tsks at My Ghetto writes:
Every now and then I’ll pick up an Elmore Leonard novel after months or years of not reading anything by him, and without fail, my reaction is always, “Why don’t I read this guy’s stuff more often?” I never really considered it before this book, my dozenth or so Leonard, but now that I have, I must credit Elmore Leonard with the distinction of being in my top 10 or so favorite authors. He’s a brilliant wordsmith who is able to both keep it simple and stay out of the way of the story he’s telling and interject amazing turns of phrase that catch your attention when you read them and make you think “that was perfect”. The way he does these two seemingly contradictory things is by reserving the clever turns of phrase and snappy lines for his characters; his ear for dialogue is uncanny and the characters in his books speak like modern, updated, real-life versions of the characters that dispensed a constantly flowing stream of snappy patter in the screwball comedies and films noir of the mid-20th century. As I said, they’re more realistic as characters than the ones that appeared in those films, but they’re still colorful and unique, still the sort of people you wouldn’t expect to run into more often than once every 10 years or so--and yet they’re 100% believable. The man is a master and I can’t believe I haven’t ever gotten onto a serious Elmore Leonard kick and devoured his entire bibliography. Maybe the problem is that such a thing would take months, since he has so many books; then again, I can’t imagine ever getting tired of reading his stuff.
Read More>
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Martin Amis Interview with Elmore in 1998
Elmore Leonard
at the Writers Guild Theatre, Beverly Hills,
January 23, 1998
MARTIN AMIS: We’re welcoming here Elmore Leonard, also known as “Dutch.” And rather less formally, the “Dickens of Detroit. “ It is an apt description, I think, because he is as close as anything you have here in America to a national novelist, a concept that almost seemed to die with Charles Dickens but has here been revived. I was recently in Boston visiting Saul Bellow, and on the shelves of the Nobel laureate, I spied several Elmore Leonards. Saul Bellow has a high, even exalted view of what literature is and does. For him, it creates the “quiet zone” where certain essences can nourish what he calls “our fair souls. “ This kind of literature of the Prousto-Nabokovian variety has recently been assigned the label “minority interest.” There is patently nothing “minority interest” about Elmore Leonard. He is a popular writer in several senses. But Saul Bellow and I agreed that for an absolutely reliable and unstinting infusion of narrative pleasure in a prose miraculously purged of all false qualities, there was no one quite like Elmore Leonard
Read entire interview here.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Sparks Trailer and Website
Sparks Website
Elmore on Gomorra - “It’s a Beauty”
Elmore and I saw Gomorra last night. This is an epic Italian film about the Camorra, the organized crime groups in the Naples, Italy area. The film is based on the bestselling book by Roberto Saviano . Gomorra is produced by Martin Scorcese, and the film tracks like one of his; with a lot of Antonioni and Brian DePalmi tossed in. Don’t miss this film when it comes your way. “It’s a beauty,” Elmore says. I agree.
From the Independent:
Roberto Saviano’s explosive revelations about the Camorra of Naples- a racket he says is bigger than Sicily’s Mafia - have led to death threats and, belatedly, an armed guard.
By Peter Popham reports
Roberto Saviano is in mortal danger. Yesterday he was - very belatedly - granted an armed bodyguard by the district of Naples where he lives. He is in grave danger of being shot, stabbed, blown up, and done away with because he has had the courage and the recklessness to spill a large number of beans about the Camorra, the Mafia of Naples. This sprawling network of criminal gangs, according to him, now dwarfs both the original Mafia of Sicily, the ‘Ndrangheta and southern Italy’s other organised gangs, in numbers, in economic power and in ruthless violence.
Read the rest of the article.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Road Dogs Teaser
The opening of Road Dogs:
They put Foley and the Cuban together in the backseat of the van and took them from the Palm Beach County jail on Gun Club to Glades Correctional, the old redbrick prison at the south end of Lake Okeechobee. Neither one said a word during the ride that took most of an hour, both of them handcuff ed and shackled.
They were returning Jack Foley to do his thirty years after busting out for a week, Foley’s mind on a woman who made intense love to him one night in Detroit, pulled a Sig Sauer .38 the next night, shot him and sent him back to Florida.
The Cuban, a little guy about fifty with dyed hair pulled back in a ponytail, was being transferred to Glades from the state prison at Starke, fi ve years down, two and a half to go of a second- degree murder conviction. The Cuban was thinking about a woman he believed he loved, this woman who could read minds.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Last Minute Gift Idea
Maximum Bob’s wife Leanne was a Weeki Wachee mermaid until an alligator swam into her act.
The first time Bob Gibbs saw his wife she was performing sixteen feet beneath the surface of Weeki Wachee Spring, in a mermaid outfit.
He watched her through the glass wall of the underwater theater. Saw her gold lamé tail undulating, saw her long golden hair moving in slow motion, Leanne smiling, showing her perfect teeth in that clear springwater before taking the tip of the air hose in her mouth, making a delicate feminine gesture of it. - Maximum Bob
Read all about this magical place in Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids: A History of One of Florida’s Oldest Roadside Attractions
“Lu Vickers has written a truly delicious, sparkling history of Florida’s own mermaid city of Weeki Wachee, one of the greatest oldtime roadside attractions. Her prose is bright, sharp and funny; combined with the illustrations brilliantly compiled by Sara Dionne, it makes for a wonderful, vivacious, superbly researched but never dry saga of the regular girls who transformed themselves into swimming goddesses and the tiny hamlet which got so famous even Elvis came to pay court.”
- Diane Roberts, National Public Radio correspondent and author of Dream State”
Monday, December 22, 2008
A Temptation or a Warning?
I always liked the image of an alcohol rehab center across from a brewery.
From Touch:
There he was, all yellow. And the priest appeared
in a green-and-white warmup suit and sneakers. A couple of rays of sunshine in the musty old room, greeting each other by name, Bill Hill warming up, glancing at the windows and asking if that big Stroh’s Beer sign was a temptation or a warning to the patients here. He meant to keep it light and chatty for a few minutes.“The residents “ Father Vaughan Quinn said, they can look at the sign and think whatever they want, as long as they know they have three choices. Die, end up in a mental hospital, or unit drinking. It’s their decision
Friday, December 19, 2008
Fire in the Hole - Movies or Series?
I read yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter story about an Untitled Elmore Leonard project and assumed it was a TV series based on Raylan Givens and the novella, Fire in the Hole. But mysterlynch on Crimespree Cinema has doubts;
Reading the article, it sounds like each will a movie, but that is not explicitly stated. A comment on Elmore Leonard’s site suggests that the Givens project might be a series. With Dinner being credited for each, I can’t imagine him tackling two series at once. They may be making a two-hour telefilm, with plans for a series if either takes off. I will try to get some clarification on this.
Since it’s more than likely a cable project, Fire in the Hole, may be a two hour launch for a series; so it would be movie length. We’ll see. A bit of trivia about Fire in the Hole. It was originally published as an e-book original by Contentville Press in 2000. Here’s a review from back then:
REVIEW BY KELLY KOEPKE
Elmore Leonard has admitted in interviews that he is an old-fashioned kind of writer, the sort that doesn’t use a computer and isn’t connected to the Internet. For 50 years he’s been writing with a pen and hasn’t found a reason to change—until now. His latest effort, an e-novella entitled Fire in the Hole, is classic Leonard, even if the medium is not.
U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens journeys back to his roots in an Eastern Kentucky coal-mining town to pursue Boyd Crowder, a white supremacist income tax evader who plans to blow up a Cincinnati IRS building. Crowder likes to shout “fire in the hole,” a coal mining phrase used before exploding a charge, whenever he blows up something.
In true Leonard fashion, Givens and Crowder have a begrudging respect for each other, a holdover from their coal mining days together. Crowder’s sister-in-law, Ava, carrier of a long-burning torch for Givens and a long-barreled rifle, confuses the mix. Throw in several rednecks, more shotguns and a rocket launcher, and the stage is set for a wild ride through Leonardland, where the talk is tough, honor is everything and a promise is a promise. This adrenaline-charged novella is full of sharply honed characters, plot twists and dialogue that only Leonard could have written, demonstrating that he has as much command of this new medium as he does the printed page.
Givens, previously seen in Pronto and Riding the Rap, is the marshal you hope is assigned to protect you. With his creased Stetson and Old West lawman personality, he only draws his gun to shoot (and kill). He’s people smart, but Crowder is too. His people shave their heads and wear swastika tattoos. They also have no love of the law or the government.
In signature Leonard style, the dialogue moves the action rather than the narrative along. And action—delivered in bursts, like the blasts of a gun and with just as much force—is the key to this novella. So strap yourself in, get comfortable and relinquish yourself to the world of Elmore Leonard, novelist, screenwriter and now e-novelist, as he returns to the genre of his roots, 21st century-style.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Raylan Givens Cable TV Series
There appears to be movement toward getting a Raylan Given’s TV series on cable. I’m all for it but they better get Raylan’s hat right this time. In the TV movie, Pronto, they gave poor James LeGros a George Strait hat that looked like it was ready to take off. The real Raylan hat is what Elmore calls, “The Dallas Businessman’s Special” - a felt city cowboy hat called the Stetson “Open Road” - Accept no substitute.
Reported today in The Hollywood Reporter:
Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly
It’s another busy development season for Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly’s Sony-based TV production company, which has set up eight projects from such auspices as Elmore Leonard, Graham Yost, Michael Dinner, Barry Sonnenfeld and Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman.
What is different this year is that most of the projects are set up at cable networks.
Since its 2003 launch, Timberman/Beverly Prods. (formerly 25C) had been focused on developing for the broadcast nets, landing several pilots and a series order from NBC for “Kidnapped.”
Timberman and Beverly tested the cable waters this year with the A&E pilot “Danny Fricke.” Now they’re hooked.
“It has opened the door to explore subject matters that we would’ve never thought of developing for broadcast,” Timberman said. “Wanting to go to cable is often a result of us not wanting the water down characters.”
It also helped that their company is based at Sony TV, a major cable player.
Timberman/Beverly’s cable slate includes an untitled Elmore Leonard drama and “Hit Man” at FX, the drama “Fade to Black” and the comedy “Carry Me” at Showtime and the drama “Between Smith and Jones” at Lifetime. On the broadcast side, the duo has sold the comedy “Holly Gale” and an untitled medical drama to CBS and comedic drama “The Nelsons” to ABC.
-- The untitled Elmore Leonard project, penned by Yost and to be directed by Dinner, is based on Leonard’s short story “Fire in the Hole.” It centers on Kentucky U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens and chronicles his cases as well his personal life, including his unfinished business with an ex-wife and his aging father.
“It’s a classic Elmore Leonard story with ironic twists of fate, dimensionalized criminals and a protagonist who is himself an enigma,” Timberman said.
Complete Fitzgerald Award Videos
Last week, Michael Brown posted his interview with Elmore Leonard at Montgomery College and highlights from the presentation and reading. Today, Elmore’s entire reading of Killshot (with a George Pelecanos introduction) has been posted.
Click here for a link to all Montgomery College, 2008 F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference videos including the interview, and Susan Cheever’s keynote address.
Read More>
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
3:10 to Yuma: The Perils of Remaking a Classic
by Doug Krentzlin, DC Classic Media and Performing Arts Examiner
Why is it, when a classic film is remade, the very qualities that made the original unique are eliminated?
Case in point: the original 1957 version of Elmore Leonard’s “3:10 to Yuma.” This is a perfect example of what was known as a “psychological western,” which is to say there is more emphasis on emotional conflict than physical action. (The only violence in the original is concentrated in the first and last five minutes of the film, whereas the new version has much more violence and traditional action.)
Cattleman Dan Evans (Van Heflin) agrees to guard captured sociopath outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) because he desperately needs the reward to save his failing ranch. As they wait in a dingy hotel room for the train to the prison in Yuma, Wade tries to tempt Evans into releasing him before his gang shows up to rescue him and kill his captors.
The biggest surprise of “3:10 to Yuma” is Ford who was cast against type as the Luciferean Wade and rose to the occasion by giving the performance of his career. Frankly, the same goes for Delmer Daves, a mildly talented director who also did his best work here.
Another crucial element to “3:10 to Yuma” is Charles Lawton’s stark black-and-white photography that intensifies the austerity of the outdoor locations and claustrophobia of the hotel room that a third of the film takes place in.
The best thing that can be said for the remake is that, at least, it has renewed interest in the original which remains one of the finest westerns of the 50s.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Joe Mantegna’s Elmore Audio (Cassette Only)
Joe Mantegna has performed the audio on five great Elmore Leonard titles. Unfortunately, for the time being, you will have to go retro to enjoy them. They are only available on cassette. But Joe lends great authority and understanding to Elmore’s great characters in his performances and it’s well worth the hardship, if indeed you see digging out the cassette deck or Walkman as too great a difficulty. The only real hardship or bummer is that in the cassette days, most readings were abridged. So that may turn some of you off.
Here are the titles which you can get from Amazon or other audio outlets.
The Elmore Leonard Value Collectionon: Pronto, Riding the Rap, and Get Shorty (Audio Cassette - Nov 7, 2000) - Abridged
Out of Sight (Audio Cassette - Aug 1, 1996) - Abridged
Riding the Rap (Audio Cassette - May 1, 1995) - Abridged
Rum Punch (Audio Cassette - Aug 1, 1992) - Abridged
Pronto (Audio Cassette - Feb 1, 2000) - Abridged
Get Shorty (Audio Cassette - Aug 1, 1990) - Abridged
Friday, December 12, 2008
F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference Videos on YouTube
Our friend, Michael Brown, Video Producer/Director in the Office of Information Technology at Montgomery College has posted four YouTube videos of Elmore’s recent appearance there for the F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference where he received the 2008 F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for literary excellence. The videos contain Michael’s twenty minute interview with Elmore as well as highlights of the award ceremony, including George Pelecanos introducing Elmore and excerpts from his reading from Killshot. Next week, Michael will upload more video of the conference including Elmore’s entire reading.
Elmore Leonard Videos from Montgomery College Television
Part 1
---------
Part 2
---------
Part 3
---------
Part 4
---------
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Coming Soon: News of Whether or Not Killshot is Coming Soon?
Wow. Talk about a tortured headline for a non-news story, but there it is. Killshot is “scheduled” for theatrical release in 41 days and yet there is no new trailer and no assurances that the date isn’t just more bullshit, like every other announced release date for the film. All things Killshot on the Weinstein website are “ coming soon.” Right now however, Weinstein is apparently absorbed with the release of The Reader starring Ralph Fiennes, David Kross and Kate Winslet which was nominated for four Golden Globes and had a limited release a few days ago. But the thing to watch for is how well The Wrestler does. This is Mickey Rourke’s critically acclaimed film that comes out in limited release December 17 and then opens wide in January. Will The Wrestler’s success determine whether Killshot is released or not? Will the fact that The Wrestler comes out the same month as Killshot be one Mickey Rourke film too many or will it have a halo effect? Nobody knows, not even Harvey Weinstein.
Check out a review of Killshot by a guy who knows what he is talking about.
Monday, December 08, 2008
“Sparks” at Sundance 2009
The film adaptation of Elmore’s short story, Sparks, will be included among 46 U.S. films, (96 short films total) at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
The film is described in the Sundance catalog as
The story of a former rock-and-roll goddess who may or may not have burnt her house down. Adapted from the writings of crime novelist Elmore Leonard.
Sparks is adapted from the story of the same name, published in Elmore’s short story collection, When the Women Come Out to Dance and Other Stories. The film is produced by Look at me Films, which is Megan Freels (Elmore’s granddaughter) and her partner, Melanie Donkers. Sparks is written for the screen and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The cast is headed by Carla Gugino, Eric Stoltz and Xander Berkeley. The voice of Kristen Johnson is also featured.
Here are the screening times for Sparks, which will play in Shorts Program 4-
Fri. Jan 16 2:15 PM Racquet Club, Park City
Sat. Jan 17 1:30 PM Broadway Centre Cinemas IV, SLC
Sat. Jan 17 11:30 PM Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City
Wed. Jan 21 8:30 PM Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City
Sat. Jan 24 11:59 PM Egyptian Theatre, Park City
Scenes from Sparks:
Elmore and the Bible?
Every wonder where the title, When the Women Come Out to Dance comes from?
The Bible.
The Book of Judges, Verse 21
and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
Then there is a more modern translation:
Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry
her off to be your wife.
-- Benjaminites (Judges 21:19-25)
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Zigzag Movie (Get Shorty)
Slow blog day in Paris.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Crime Scene by Terry Shaw
Retired Detroit Police Investigator, Terry Shaw has a jazz album out called “Crime Scene” that features the track,
“1300 Beaubien.” Listen to tracks from “Crime Scene” as well as other CDs by Terry Shaw here.
Read More>
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Howling Diablos
The Howling Diablos are a great band from Detroit. Elmore has borrowed their name for the coyote gang in A Coyote’s In the House! and gives them a major shout out in Road Dogs. Foley and an Aryan Brotherhood guy at Lompoc discuss their mutual fondness for The Howling Diablos.
Click here for their website.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Elmore’s Take on Stagecoach
John Russell (Paul Newman), a white man raised by a band of Arizona Apaches, is forced to confront the society he despises when he sells the boarding house his father has left him. While leaving town by stagecoach, several bigoted passengers insist he ride outside with the driver (Martin Balsam). But when outlaws leave them all stranded in the desert, Russell may be their only hope for survival! Diane Cilento, Frederic March, Richard Boone and Barbara Rush co-star in this action-packed Western classic.
Paul Newman is the blue-eyed “savage,” a white man raised by the Indians who rejects so-called civilized society for his spiritual family, in Elmore Leonard’s take on Stagecoach. It’s not exactly Grand Hotel on wheels. The hypocrites, crooks, and racists Newman travels with cast him out of their polite company in the coach, then turn to him for salvation when outlaws hold up the stage and hunt them through the desert. It’s hard to “like” Newman’s cold, hard survivor, but you can’t help but respect his cunning and his unsentimental directness. Fredric March is sweaty with corruption as a crooked Indian agent, and Richard Boone smiles his deadly charm as a lusty bad man. While this 1966 Western wears its social politics on its dusty sleeves, director Martin Ritt tempers the revisionist moral of the tale with a stripped-down ruthlessness befitting the rugged, unforgiving landscape. --Sean Axmaker
Punch créole
The French covers ain’t bad either.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Italian Killshot Cover
Elmore and I were knocked out by this Einaudi cover for Killshot, to be published in 2009. The Italians did it again! They get it!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Elmore captures “Ordinariness with Being Ordinary”
Film Club - A Memoir by David Gilmour.
Canadian novelist Gilmour (A Perfect Night to Go to China) grapples with his decision to allow his teenage son, Jesse, to leave school in the 10th grade provided he promises to watch three movies a week with his father.
Gilmour has some good things to say about Elmore in Film Club.
There is a story about Elmore Leonard I’ve always liked. During the fifties, he was an advertising copywriter for Chevrolet. To come up with a jazzy buzz line for their line of hall-ton trucks, Leonard went into the field to interview the guys who drove them. One guy said, “You can’t wear the son-of-a-bitch out. You just get sick of looking as it and buy another one.”
The Chevy executives laughed when Leonard presented it to them, but said no thanks; that wasn’t quite what they had in mind for the nation’s billboards. But it was exactly the kind of talk that turned up in Leonard ‘s novels a decade later when he turned to crime fiction. It captured the feel of ordinariness without actually being ordinary.
Do you remember this scene from the 1990 Leonard novel Get Shorty? Chili Palmer gets an expensive coat ripped off in a restaurant; he doesn’t say, “Hey, where’s my coat-it cost four hundred bucks?’ No, no, Instead, he takes the owner aside and says, “You see a black leather jacket, fingertip length, has lapels like a suit coat? You don’t, you owe me three seventy-nine?’ That’s vintage Elmore Leonard dialogue. Amusing and specific.
Or how about this little bit of business from his 1995 thriller Riding the Rap. U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens has just come upon two unsuspecting felons in the middle of a car-jacking. Leonard describes what follows this way: “Raylan put the shotgun on the two guys ... and did something every lawman knew guaranteed attention and respect. He racked the pump on the shotgun, back and forward, and that hard metallic sound, better than blowing a whistle, brought the two guys around so see they were out of business.”There have been lots of films based on Elmore Leonard novels. Hombre back in 1967 with Paul Newman, Mr Majestyk (1974), Stick with Burt Reynolds in 1985, 52 Pick-Up (1986). More often than not, these early films didn’t appreciate the black humor and the outrageously good chit-chat that characterized Leonard’s novels. It took a generation of new and younger filmmakers to get those things right. Quentio Tarantino made a lovely, if slightly too long, film called Jackie Brown (1997); Get Shorty nailed the Elmore Leonard tone; it’s also worth noting en passant that it was the film’s star, John Travolta, who insisted that the dialogue from the novel be used in the film.
And then in 1998 came director Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Critics loved it but people didn’t buy tickets and, same old sad story, it dropped out of sight very quickly. Which was too had because it was one of the best films of that year.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tour of Elmore Leonard’s Detroit
Dutch Forum members John McFetridge and Jade are putting together the locations from Elmore’s Detroit books in a Google Map. The purpose of the map is to identify all the locations from the Detroit books and create an interactive database which will be used to create a Tour of Elmore Leonard’s Detroit by several Dutch Forum members next spring. A permanent button has been placed on the left column to check their progress.
View the map of Elmore Leonard’s Detroit locations here.
View The Detroit Locations thread here in the Dutch Forum.
Burke and McFetridge Going Dutch
Our own John McFetridge has written a meta short story about a fictional side trip with Irish novelist, Declan Burke on the road to Bouchercon in Baltimore last month.
Read the rest.Before heading off to Bouchercon this year I started to write a bit of fiction about the trip. I present the beginning of it here and will post the rest of it over the next few weeks.
Remember, it’s fiction. It’s all made up. All of it.
The Ten Rules
When I wrote my novel, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, I used Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing, and I’m pretty sure that Declan Burke used them when he wrote his novel, The Big O, so it was natural when we teamed up to pull armed robberies on our way to Bouchercon in Baltimore, we’d use Elmore’s Ten Rules for Success and Happiness from his novel Swag.
In both cases we had to make minor changes to the rules. For one thing, grocery stores and bars never have much cash on hand anymore and one exclamation point for every hundred thousand words? Come on, these are crime novels, people getting robbed and beaten up yell.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Screening of “Sparks”
Last night, I attended a special screening of Sparks, at CAA in Century City. Sparks is an Elmore Leonard short story, from the collection, When the Women Come Out to Dance. It is the tale of a beautiful young widow who burns down her house in Malibu and the subsequent visit by a suspicious but pliable insurance investigator.
The short film was written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who also plays Richie Nix in the (hopefully) upcoming Killshot. Sparks was produced by Look at me Films, a partnership of Melanie Donkers and Megan Freels, Elmore’s granddaughter.
The cast is outstanding. The widow, Robin, is played by Carla Gugino, who you will remember as the lead in the short lived ABC TV series, Karen Sisco, based on the female marshal character from Out of Sight. Golden Globe nominated actor Eric Stoltz plays the investigator, Canavan. Also in the cast is Xander Berkeley as Robin’s late husband, Sid Harris. Joe’s former castmate from 3rd Rock from the Sun, Kristen Johnson, plays the off screen Voice of Reason.
The film is imaginatively shot combining live action scenes with exaggerated theatrical snippets for comic and dramatic effect. The acting is first rate.Joe’s script is very close to Elmore’s story and both the script and his direction has captured the all important Elmore Leonard sound.
Congratulations to Joe, Melanie and Megan and the whole cast and crew, many of whom showed up for the festivities.
The film is now heading off to various film festivals in 2009, where it is bound to attract attention and praise.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Out of Sight Voted Sexiest Movie
The latest edition of Entertainment Weekly lists the 50 sexiest movies ever made, and “Out of Sight” is on top. They call it “a crackerjack thriller and a cinematic aphrodisiac at the same time.” Credit goes to Elmore, of course, and director Steven Soderbergh, screenwriter, Scott Frank and actors, George Clooney and Jenifer Lopez.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Honey From Russia
Up in Honey’s Room, the Russian Edition. I wish I could read this page. I got a feelng that the translator broke every one of Elmore’s rules.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Road Dogs ARE Back Cover
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Comfort to the Enemy - British Hardcover
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (16 April 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0297856685
ISBN-13: 978-0297856689
Product Description
Comfort to the Enemy is a dazzling novel in three parts by the “crimewriter’s crimewriter” Elmore Leonard. Taken from the beginning, middle and mature years of Carl Webster’s crime-fighting career, these three tales show Elmore Leonard at the top of his game. The title story begins with a murder at a German POW camp. We’re in Webster’s twilight years: the bank robbers of the 1920s are gone and Carl has married Louly. Oklahoma is full of POW camps with crewmen and grenadiers from the Afrika Korps, and some just keep escaping. Befriending one escapee, Carl gets embroiled in a tale of gangsters’ molls, enemy lines, and promises of what will happen after the war. With excellent dialogue, grippingly credible characters and the glamour of sex and bad reputation, Comfort to the Enemy is all you’d expect from the grand old man of American crime fiction.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Road Dogs Cover
An ElmoreLeonard.com exclusive. The Road Dogs cover. On sale, May 12, 2009. This scan does not properly represent the “glitter-grime” scattered about the cover. It’s reflective. Also, the type is raised. It’s a nice effect.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
New SWAG Trade Paperback Cover
Swag
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (April 14, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061741361
ISBN-13: 978-0061741364
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Killshot in Theatres January 23, 2009?
Maybe. Do you pray?
The one-sheet for Killshot (in English) was displayed at the Americn Film Market and The Weinstein Company has set a date of January 23, 2009 for the release of the film.
ComingSoon.net has an entry to that effect, filled with the same old errors: It’s not a Quentin Tarantino production, Johnny Knoxville is not in the picture, the trailer which appeared on several DVDs is old and there is no active website. Other than that, everything appears to be OK.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Elmore’s Countries
Countries that Elmore has an active license in.
Brazil, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the UK, and the US.
Friday, November 07, 2008
The Writer in Winter by John Updike
AARP Magazine
A literary legend shares his greatest hope: that his last book will be his best
By and large, time moves with merciful slowness in the old-fashioned world of writing. The 88-year-old Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Elmore Leonard and P.D. James continue, into their 80s, to produce bestselling thrillers.
Young or old, a writer sends a book into the world, not himself. There is no Senior Tour for authors, with the tees shortened by 20 yards and carts allowed. No mercy is extended by the reviewers; but then it is not extended to the rookie writer, either. He or she may feel, as the gray-haired scribes of the day continue to take up space and consume the oxygen in the increasingly small room of the print world, that the elderly have the edge, with their established names and already secured honors. How we did adore and envy them, the idols of our college years—Hemingway and Faulkner, Frost and Eliot, Mary McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty! We imagined them aswim in a heavenly refulgence, as joyful and immutable in their exalted condition as angels forever singing.
Read the rest at aarpmagazine.org
Killshot ISN’T Coming Out Today
I write this for those misguided souls who believe what they read on the Internet about Killshot coming out today. The Weinstein Company’s Department of Misinformation put that date out and then deleted it but quite a few bloggers are still picking it up. If Killshot is to be released theatrically, a date of January 23, 2009 has been tossed around.
Meanwhile, an Israeli one-sheet for Killshot has appeared. Who knows why…
Courtesy of postergeek
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Can You Guess the Title?
Click “read more” for the answer.
Hint: The cover is totally clueless.
Read More>
Monday, November 03, 2008
“I’ve Always Felt Like a Success.”
photo by Dean Evangelista
This Writing Life
Mark Terry
Feeling Successful
I remember watching an interview with Elmore Leonard a number of years ago and the interviewer asked him at which book did he feel like he was a success? His fifth? His sixth? When his 18th or 19th finally broke through?
Leonard said, “I’ve always felt like a success.”
It was a nice answer and Leonard, I’ve often felt, never allows himself to be manipulated by interviewers. I don’t know if he actually felt that way or not and it doesn’t matter, really, because it’s a good thing to remind yourself.
Note to Mark: He does feel that way.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Joe Kidd Trailer
A stateside Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry, Kelly’s Heroes) vehicle that definitely emulates his spaghetti western days, Joe Kidd isn’t quite as entertaining as the Sergio Leone masterworks, but it does deliver the goods for those hungry for more. Unlike the other films, though, Eastwood’s character does have a name, Joe Kidd, but in most other respects, he’s the same take-no-crap, do-for-self, renegade character we’ve come to know and love. I used to consider this a misfire in the Eastwood western arc, but over the years, it has grown on me. Today, I consider it an entertaining and thoughtful Western that, while it may pale in significance to Clint’s best, is still better than most others of its genre made during the same period.
Friday, October 31, 2008
All Quiet on the Western Front - An Elmore Leonard Play
All Quiet on the Western Front was a big influence on the young Elmore Leonard. In 1935, he read a serialized version in The Detroit Times, and saw the 1930 film version. He staged a play in fifth grade based on the story, using the desks in the classroom as no-mans-land. He wishes he still had a copy of that play.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
In Praise of Elmore Leonard
photo by: Dean Evangelista
Heroes or villains?
By Crawford Kilian
TheTyee.ca
I ran across a copy of Up in Honey’s Room the other day, and enjoyed the pleasure of holding an unread Elmore Leonard novel in my hand.
It didn’t stay unread for long. Adding to the general fun of a crime/spy story set in 1945 Detroit, Leonard makes it the third novel in a family saga. The hero is U.S. marshal Carl Webster, a bit older than he was in The Hot Kid (1930s Oklahoma), with cameo appearances by his father Virgil, a major character in Cuba Libre (the Spanish-American War in 1898).
The Websters and their womenfolk are typical Leonard characters, which means the men are bloody-minded individualists and the women are twice as tough and smart as the men.
Still writing in his mid-80s, Leonard has maintained a consistent style and vision for decades. You might call it hardboiled, but you’d be wrong.
Counting on the smart reader
Ernest Hemingway copied the unemotional narrative of the Icelandic sagas, where we know only what the characters say and do—not what they think and feel. We have to deduce their thoughts. It was a very successful style, though it now sounds dated.
Dashiell Hammett and other 1930s writers used Hemingway’s style to create hardboiled crime fiction, which was really contemptuous of its characters’ thoughts and feelings. That in turn changed into the sadism of Mickey Spillaine and the self-conscious similes of Raymond Chandler—similes that piled up like glittering poker chips in some crooked game where Death himself was the dealer.
Elmore Leonard went back to the Icelandic source and to the speech rhythms of working-class America. He assumes we have the intelligence to understand what his characters are going through, so he doesn’t waste our time telling us.
An odd sense of personal justice
But while his characters speak as naturally as Huck Finn, they are a little larger than life. They have a strong sense of personal justice. In Cuba Libre, one character robs a bank—of exactly the amount he believes it owes him. Carl Webster, as a teenager in The Hot Kid, kills a man who’s stealing the Webster family cattle. He goes on to kill a lot of other people, without suffering noticeable psychological harm.
This kind of violent stoicism clearly appeals to many of us who feel nervous just walking past the kids in front of the convenience store. Leonard’s heroes keep cool even when crooks have them tied up at gunpoint.
And what crooks! Critics praised Hammett for giving murder back to people who had good reasons to commit it. Leonard gives murder to people who have stupid reasons to commit it. His villains are clever morons, ambitious beyond their abilities. They’re optimists, even idealists, believing in the American dream of endless ascent to wealth, over as many bodies as it takes.
As tough as the heroes are, and as vicious as the villains may be, Leonard’s women usually decide matters. They shelter and heal the heroes, and sometimes they beat the bad guys to the draw. The heroes are respectful of the women’s brains and sexiness, and sometimes baffled as well. The villains ensure their own downfall by underestimating the women.
Leonard is a political writer in more than male-female relations. In Bandits (1987), his semi-crooked heroes go after some money the CIA plans to give the Nicaraguan Contras. Freaky Deaky (1988) includes relics of the Black Panthers and the Weathermen. Pagan Babies (2000) deals with the genocide in Rwanda. He is not particularly preachy; politics is just part of his characters’ lives, and they respond accordingly.
The thriller as satire
Much of the authenticity of Leonard’s settings is thanks to his own long life in places like Detroit and Florida. Up in Honey’s Room portrays 1945 Detroit with details surely drawn from Leonard’s own youth.
But he also relies on research, sometimes too much. Cuba Libre turns into a kind of coal-burning techno-thriller as his characters rattle off the specs of the U.S. warships attacking Cuba. The characters in Up in Honey’s Room spend too much time needlessly talking about details of the war—informing us, not each other.
Homer nodded, and so does Elmore. But we do learn a lot from him about forgotten aspects of American history, about the way bail bondsmen do business, and about the way a lot of American men wish they were. His deadpan style conceals a lot of deadpan humour, at the expense of both heroes and villains.
When the gunshots stop ringing in your ears, you realize you’re reading not just a thriller-writer, but a satirist comparable to Twain and Vonnegut. We will not see his like again.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Highlights from the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference
Elmore receives the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award from John Moser, Chairman of the conference.
photos by Dean Evangelista
On Saturday, Elmore received the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award at the 13th Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland.
Elmore started off his day with an interview with Michael Brown of Montgomery College Television. We’ll post that interview soon.
After opening remarks by John Moser, Chairman of F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference Committee and Carolyn Terry, Dean of Humanities, Montgomery College, Rockville Campus, there was a panel discussion, “Crime and Mystery – A New and Yet Familiar Genre.” moderated by Pulitzer prize winning critic and Washington Post Book World Columnist, Michael Dirda, with novelists Laura Lippman and George Pelecanos. Elmore was asked to join this exceptional panel.
Elmore and George Pelecanos.
After lunch, novelist Susan Cheever, daughter of the late John Cheever, gave a fascinating keynote address: The Mystery of Great Writing From 1850 to the Present, followed a little later by the presentation of the Thirteenth Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Award to Elmore. He was introduced by George Pelaconaos, and then talked about Fitzgerald who was represented by his agent, the late H. N. Swanson. Elmore then read the opening scene of Killshot.
“It was a lot of fun,” Elmore said. “There were 250 to 300 people there and I got a chance to talk to a lot of them. I was very happy to be in the company of past award recipients like Joyce Carol Oates; E. L. Doctorow, John Updike, and William Kennedy.
Special thanks to John Moser, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference Committee, Montgomery College and all the partiipants for making this a very memorable event.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Harvey Weinstein Says Killshot Release Date Will Be Before the Oscars
As we were saying…
Harvey Weinstein explains it all for you
by Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
It’s gotten to the point where if you have a movie with the Weinstein Co., you need to have your agent phoning Exhibitor Relations every morning to see if your film’s still coming out. Even worse, you can’t be sure who’ll be handling the company’s acquisition, marketing or production either. As the Hollywood Reporter revealed yesterday, a host of top Weinstein execs are jumping ship. The company’s co-heads of acquisitions and production left recently. They will now be joined by the company’s production president , a senior VP of production and a top marketing executive, who are either heading out the door or leaving shortly.
Luckily, I managed to get Harvey Weinstein on the phone late today, and he had an answer for everything. He contends that all the late-breaking moves are simply ways for the company to take advantage of various marketing, promotion and scheduling opportunities. Here’s his take [on Killshot]:
.
“Killshot”: “Everyone has said that Mickey Rourke is amazing in ‘The Wrestler’ and will be up for all sorts of awards, so we decided to move ‘Killshot’ to a date a few weeks before the Oscars. That way we can capitalize on all the heat that’s going to be around Mickey.”
Read the rest of Patrick Goldstein’s article
The 81st Academy Awards will again take place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on February 22, 2009.
F. Scott Fitzgerald Award To Honor Elmore Leonard on Saturday
washingtonpost.com
The 13th annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference will run from 8:30 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. Saturday, honoring writer Elmore “Dutch” Leonard and offering lectures, discussions and workshops for aspiring authors.
There will also be speeches and book signings by published writers.
Leonard will receive the F. Scott Fitzgerald award for outstanding achievement in American literature. The author and screenwriter has written more than 40 novels, including “Freaky Deaky,” “Killshot,” “Maximum Bob,” “Get Shorty” and the short story “3:10 to Yuma.”
The conference will include a variety of workshops, including new ones in screen adaptation, nonfiction writing style, editor-author relationships and straight talk from publishers.
An awards ceremony at 2:15 p.m. will feature a keynote speech by author Susan Cheever on “The Mystery of Great Writing From 1850 to the Present.”
Participating writing professionals include publisher Paul Dry of Paul Dry Books, poets Robert Giron, Michael Gushue and Katherine Smith, Disney writer Stacy Barton, Maryland Library Association Author of the Year Laura Lippman, novelist George Pelecanos and others.
The conference will take place in the Theatre Arts Building at Montgomery College’s Rockville campus, 51 Mannakee St.
For registration information and a full schedule, call 301-309-9461 or click here.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Killshot “Coming Soon” Maybe
To absolutely nobody’s surprise, the Weinstein Company no longer claims that Killshot will be released on November 7 but is now “Coming Soon”. Actually, we’ve known the November date was bogus all along, but TWC has finally fessed up; changing their website to reflect the film’s nebulous status. As we’ve heard from every quarter, the fate of Killshot hinges on how well Mickey Rourke’s new film, The Wrestler does at the box office.
As reported on Screenhead
The surprise winner of this year’s Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler has squeezed into the remaining 2008 release schedule, due out on December 19th in the US. The film, focusing on a washed-up wrestler’s attempts to redeem his career and his estranged family, exceeded expectations, with the director’s usually frenzied style being pared back to allow the cast to work their magic. Indeed, Micky Rourke is already being predicted to nab an Oscar nomination at the least, hence the film’s release date.
If The Wrestler is a hit and Mickey Rourke gets his Oscar nod, Harvey Weinstein might “rush” Killshot into theaters. If the film does so-so business and there’s no Oscar buzz, it’ll go straight to DVD.
So go see The Wrestler if you want to see Killshot on the big screen. Go, Mickey!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Margaret Atwood on Chili Palmer
From Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood
So far we’ve been talking about what might legitimately be done to you for nonpayment of debts that were contracted legally. But what if the debt itself has been arranged in some shady nook outside the borders of the law? What, for instance, if the debtor has borrowed the money from a Mafia loan shark Then the pressures brought to bear may he of quite a different order.
My chief source of information on such matters is the inimitable Elmore Leonard. In his crime novel Get Shorty his anti-hero, Chili Palmer, is employed as a skip tracer for the Mafia, and he’s chasing around after a compulsive small-time gambler who’s playing a hard but stupid game of Try and Collect, Chili has this to say about the techniques of loan sharks: