Mariner Books has announced the publication of Picket Line, written in 1970, scheduled for release on September 30, 2025. They are calling it a major release of a lost novella by Elmore Leonard. I must correct this marketing misnomer before it’s too late. Picket Line is not major, it’s not lost, and most importantly, it’s not a novella. It’s the first act and de facto treatment for a motion picture that never got made—but would live on in another form.

Is Picket Line worth reading? If you’re an Elmore Leonard fan, or just enjoy good writing—hell yes.

A novella is either a short novel or a long short story with a beginning, middle, and end. Act One of Picket Line sets the table with characters and hints at the larger story. It ends soft—not with a satisfying conclusion but like the first movement of a symphony: it introduces ideas and themes, with the actual payoff to come.

Of course, Dutch was familiar with the form novella. He had written long short stories in his Western days that qualify, and would write two excellent novellas thirty years later: Tenkiller and Fire in the Hole—the pilot episode of Justified. But it’s ludicrous to think Dutch would write a novella in 1970. He was “commercially minded” at all times and not interested in any writing project other than a complete novel and/or an original screenplay. He wrote the first act of a novel called Picket Line as a treatment, with the full intention of completing it if the opportunity presented itself. It didn’t. Here’s the story.

Dutch was always strapped for cash during this period (1969–1974) and aimed his sights on movie deals, following the guidance of his legendary agent H. N. “Swanie” Swanson. Swanie appreciated that Dutch was willing to tailor his work to the movie marketplace. So when Swanie told him that Columbia producers Howard Jaffe and Edward Lewis were looking for a “migratory fruitpicker story,” Dutch went to work on it. Swanie suggested a screenplay first, and maybe later a novelization (the designation for a novel written after a screenplay). Dutch chose to write the first act of a novel called Picket Line as a treatment.

At the same time, Dutch was pitching Jesus Saves—a story set in a corner of northern Georgia where the New South was window dressing for Old South Bible thumpers. By August, Howard Jaffe passed on Picket Line, telling Swanie he wouldn’t be able to turn it into “his kind of story”—an oft-repeated phrase Dutch would hear many more times in Hollywood. Then in September, producers Gabriel Katzka and Ed Scherick of Palomar Studios expressed interest in the property and said they wanted to do it in a documentary style.

Producers Ira Steiner and Aaron Rosenberg also made a rejected lowball offer but said they were willing to take a look at the finished novel. So Swanie sent Picket Line “out to the town.” He said of the 112 pages that Dutch had written: “In spite of the fact that two books on the same subject have been bought for pictures, I think you should finish it up as a book.” Swanie explained, “A year or two ago, it was not too difficult to arrange with a producer to put some money up while a writer was developing a subject [but] the industry is trying to reduce its risks by seeing a complete piece of work before they make any investment.” The thought now was shooting Picket Line as a two-hour television film with a writer budget of about $25,000—but there was little hope of a quick deal.

Meanwhile, Dutch and Swanie’s attention turned elsewhere. On February 12, 1971, Swanie closed a deal on a new project, Sinola, for producer Sidney Beckerman, which would put his share of $25,000 in Dutch’s pocket sooner rather than later.

Dutch soon was deep into writing the Sinola screenplay. He was commuting from Detroit to Hollywood, going home for the weekend and flying back on Monday. Universal and Beckerman were freaking out about the added expense. Picket Line by now was on the shelf gathering a little dust.

But wait—there’s yet another project in the works called American Flag, about a gold mine in 1910 with a miner character up against the big mining company. Steve McQueen was announced as attached, but ultimately dropped out as he was busy shooting The Getaway for Sam Peckinpah and had no time to discuss American Flag script changes.

There were other projects discussed around this time: Jerry Gershwin wanted Dutch to adapt James M. Cain’s Past All Dishonor and/or The Violent Ones by E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame. Then Walter Mirisch entered the picture and sought out the veteran Detroit ad man, Elmore Leonard, to adapt the ultimate Detroit automotive novel, Arthur Hailey’s Wheels, which had just come out in 1971. But another book about the auto industry—Harold Robbins’ The Betsy, published in the same year—sold first and Mirisch lost interest. Dutch was not particularly keen on the assignment anyway.

Sinola was shot as Joe Kidd, and despite the studio interference in the story, Clint Eastwood was looking for something new from Dutch for his production company, Malpaso.

So Dutch pulls the first act of Picket Line off the shelf and “hangs it up for parts” and writes what would become Mr. Majestyk. Eastwood didn’t like it and passed. Actually, he was more interested in another project, High Plains Drifter.

Dutch completed the screenplay for Mr. Majestyk, which now starred Charles Bronson. He wrote the novelization in tandem with his screenplay to coincide with the release of the movie in July 1974. Thus, the first and only act of Picket Line was absorbed in part into the screenplay and novelization of Mr. Majestyk.

Conclusion: Picket Line was shelved, not lost. It was the first act of a novel, not a novella. Leonard wrote it with the intent to finish if a deal came through—which it didn’t. That’s the story. It deserves to be read and understood on those terms.

Shortly after Dutch’s death, I informed the Elmore Leonard Estate of the existence of Picket Line and that it would make an excellent addition to a collection of Dutch’s unpublished stories, which I had assembled along with notes as to why each story was rejected or not published.

In 2015, Mariner put out Charlie Martz and Other Stories—without my notes, and without Picket Line. Dutch never wanted any of these works to be published without explanatory text… or frankly, at all. However, had Picket Line been in the collection, it could have been properly presented.

As I said at the top, Picket Line is well worth reading. Unfortunately, because of the misidentification, readers may be bewildered by the ending of the so-called novella, instead of thinking about the novel that might have been.

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