Elmore Leonard’s Double Dutch Treat (1986)
Three Novels:  The Moonshine War – Gold Coast – City Primeval

Introduction by Bob Greene

I find myself being wary whenever a writer is the recipient of a sudden burst of publicity.  My thought is not that the writer is especially good; rather, my instinct is that the person has probably hired a fancy press agent, and that the press agent has done a creditable job.  The hype is just that; a new star has been created but both the star and the newly famous project will probably forgotten in a month – usually rightfully so.

I will confess that this is the way I felt when the novel GLITZ, by Elmore Leonard, was published to lavish acclaim and publicity.  With the release of GLITZ Leonard suddenly became inescapable in the media, and it was almost impossible to pick up a national publication without seeing his name.  Newspaper feature sections ran long stories about him, and he even ended up on the cover of NEWSWEEK.  This Leonard was hot, all right.

I figured that Leonard was destined to be the media darling of the season, and silently congratulated him for his publicity coup.  I had no desire to read GLITZ; after all, in cases like this it’s the publicity that matters, not the book.  One day, though, I purchased a copy of GLITZ.  I didn’t read it right away; it sat there on a table for weeks on end.  I was almost angry at myself for having given in by buying it.  I had fallen for the great American publicity machine.

Finally, though, I read it.  Boy, did I read it.  And the first thing I did after finishing it was to hurry to the bookstore to purchase other novels by Leonard.  I wolfed them down one after another; I found out that Leonard had been writing for more than thirty years, and had written twenty-three books.

I was a little embarrassed, coming so late to the Leonard fold.  Here were all these books – they had been around for years, and I was just learning how good Leonard was.

And how good is he?  Incredible, that’s all.  As a person who makes his living trying to put words on paper, I am in awe of the guy.  Elmore Leonard’s books are sheer entertainment – but at the same time they maintain total respect for the reader.  There are days when I know I should be doing something else, but I can’t make myself put down the Leonard book I am reading at the time.

After I read my first few Leonard books, I went around telling people about him.  I found out quickly that a lot of folks already were well aware of his skills.  The question troubled me:  Why was it that Leonard had not become a major literary star before GLITZ?

I think it’s this:  he defies categorization – and when you do try to categorize him, you are invariably wrong.  For instance, when you look for books on the paperback racks, you usually are able find them in the “mystery” section.  That immediately brings to mind writers in the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett – writers of tough-guy detective fiction.

That’s the kind of writer I assumed Leonard was before I tried him.  In fact, I had passed his books in stores several times, and not picked them up – I’m not all that much a fan of hard-boiled private eye novels.  But Elmore Leonard is way beyond that – his books have such texture and life, they’re unlike anything you can pigeonhole.  I can see why this worked against him for so long; a good but sad rule of thumb is that if you can’t describe a writer’s stuff in one sentence, then it will be hard to sell him.  That had been Leonard’s problem; happily, those days are all over now. 

It strikes me that even in this introduction, I have not managed to convey what it is that makes Leonard so special.  Let me put it this way:  given the chance to see the most popular movie of the season, watch the most popular television show of the season, or read an Elmore Leonard novel that I know absolutely nothing about in advance, I’ll go with the Leonard novel every time.  He’s just that much fun.

And now you are in a lucky position:  you have a book in your hands, and between the covers of this one volume are three Elmore Leonard novels.  I’ll get out of the way; you’ve heard enough from me.  Enjoy yourself.  As if you needed encouraging.

END

Here is the link for the introduction to Elmore Leonard’s Dutch Treat by George F Will that Gregg put on the site: