Can anyone tell an Australian fan just what the title of “Riding the Rap” means and how it relates to what the novel is about?

RIDING THE RAP Chapter One, last paragraph:

“I don’t take what you did personally.  You understand?  Want to lean on you.  Or wish you any more state time’n you deserve.  What you have to do now is ride the rap, as they say.  It’s all anybody has to do.”

I assume do the time.  Ride the rap, do the time.  Harry Arno is kidnapped in this great story.  He has to ride the rap.

The next Elmore Leonard novel features Dawn Navarro from RIDING THE RAP.

Muchas gracias!

Webmaster trivia:  The original title for Riding the Rap was Out of Sight.

Can anyone tell an Australian fan just what the title of “Riding the Rap” means and how it relates to what the novel is about?

Hey Old Bear, Elmore is a big fan of that violent little Australian gem, Chopper.  He met director Andrew Dominik and Eric Bana at Telluride in 2000.  I was there, too.

Gregg Sutter - 26 February 2008 12:13 AM

Can anyone tell an Australian fan just what the title of “Riding the Rap” means and how it relates to what the novel is about?

Hey Old Bear, Elmore is a big fan of that violent little Australian gem, CHOPPER.  He met director Andrew Dominik and Eric Bana at Telluride in 2000.  I was there, too.

Here is an Elmore Leonard piece about CHOPPER.

Robb - 26 February 2008 12:27 AM

Gregg Sutter - 26 February 2008 12:13 AM

Can anyone tell an Australian fan just what the title of “Riding the Rap” means and how it relates to what the novel is about?

Hey Old Bear, Elmore is a big fan of that violent little Australian gem, CHOPPER.  He met director Andrew Dominik and Eric Bana at Telluride in 2000.  I was there, too.

Here is an Elmore Leonard piece about CHOPPER.

Like a free short story. Thanks.

Thanks very much for the information - really appreciated.

Meantime I found a detailed explanation of “riding the rap” in Maximum Bob (1992):

‘What you have to learn is how to ride the rap, do your own time, but get salty as quick as you can. You’re in the population, you don’t have to be good-looking, you’re a new punk coming in and that’ll get you elected. The first one comes at you and you back down, you’re pussy. What you have to do is boo him up. A nigger, you have to stick him. See, if a nigger has a white boy, even one’s ugly, he thinks he’s a big man. What you do is buy yourself a shank. You can get anything you want in there but a woman.’ (and so on)

This is Elvin Crowe’s advice to his nephew Dale on p. 87.

oh yes
always
good advise
to listen
to anything
a crowe might say
while flying over your head
riding the rap is practiced
in prison
but never
perfected

Dawn lives in a house in Briny Breezes.  She tells Harry:

“Here’s the address, it’s on Ramona in Briny Breezes?  Three miles up A1A on the right-hand side.  If you come to a trailer park you’ve passed it.”

The problem with this is that Briny Breezes IS a trailer park, a fairly well-known one, there are no houses there.

Thanks - all knowledge is treasured. Anyone got an idea why Elmore drops into wrtiting sentences with just present participles, no main verbs, at dramatic moments in some books but not others?

Old Bear - 01 May 2008 08:44 PM

Thanks - all knowledge is treasured. Anyone got an idea why Elmore drops into wrtiting sentences with just present participles, no main verbs, at dramatic moments in some books but not others?

It’s a refinement of the style. I think you see more of it, the more books he writes. Even though he had a personal style in the early westerns, as he said himself, it takes writing a million words to find your voice. Martin Amis credits Elmore Leonard with finding a way of ‘‘slowing down and suspending the English sentence,’’ thereby opening up ‘‘a lag in time’’ through which he ‘‘easily slides, gaining entry to his players’ hidden minds.’’

It took a while to develop that.

The problem with this is that Briny Breezes IS a trailer park, a fairly well-known one, there are no houses there.

You are correct sir.  Elmore knew it, I knew it.  The residential street Dawn lives on is in Gulf Stream or Ocean Ridge.  He liked the sound of Briny Breezes, and that’s enough for him. 

Do true facts have to be exact in fiction?  Certainly you can’t put a safety on a revolver.  Elmore found that out the hard way.

Actually, we have been waiting patiently for 15 years for some careful reader to come forward and bust us on Briny Breezes.

Thanks.

Thanks, John McFetridge. The interesting thing is that I don’t notice it in some of the latest ones like “The Hot Kid” and “Up in Honey’s Room”, while its very common in some of those from the ‘90s.

It may be most common of all in Mr. Paradise - the writing style in that book is why I think it’s underrated. Maybe he changes the style slightly for the period pieces.

Really looking forward to the new one.

Gregg Sutter - 26 February 2008 12:11 AM

Webmaster trivia:  The original title for Riding the Rap was Out of Sight.

I noticed the phrase ‘out of sight’ is used in Riding The Rap. I forget when and by whom.