Thursday, July 02, 2009
Interlochen Public Radio - Michigan Writers on the Air
Aaron Stander of Interlochen Public Radio drove “down state” to Elmore’s house to interview him and Peter Leonard a few days before their appearance at The Traverse City National Writers Festival.
Listen to the interview here.
permalink
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
” I can’t think of another American crime novelist who so consistently delivers the goods”
Washington Times
BOOK REVIEW: Elmore Leonard’s 44th
John Greenya
I think Elmore Leonard made a pact with the devil. Unlike Dorian Gray, he is getting and looking older, but his ability to write his trademark sassy, smart, funny (often LOL) and page-turning prose is undiminished in this, his 44th book.
Don’t bother to contact me and nitpick about the fact that three of the books aren’t novels. (There are two short-story collections and one work of nonfiction.) Try it, and I’ll send Chili Palmer after you. If you don’t know who that is, you might not even know who Mr. Leonard is, and if so, you can stop reading right here; but if you stop, you’ll miss your chance to meet the best crime writer, and one of the best and hippest creations, in all of contemporary popular fiction.
To call Jack Foley (the charming crook from Mr. Leonard’s 2002 novel “Out of Sight,” played by George Clooney in the movie version) and Cundo Rey “road dogs,” as in best friends, is somewhat ironic, given that when we meet them, they’re both incarcerated, as in locked up.
Read More>
permalinkTuesday, June 30, 2009
Jack Batten in Toronto Star: Here’s to the Coolest Leonard Cat
The Toronto Star
Jack Batten
Elmore Leonard brings back a bunch of familiar characters, but this is no mail-in job – bank robber Jack Foley remains the king of cool
Of the 21, by far the coolest guy is Jack Foley.
Read More>
permalinkSunday, June 28, 2009
Peter Leonard joins father in the family business
By CHRIS TALBOTT
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 28, 2009; 1:02 PM
JACKSON, Miss.—Fresh out of college with an English degree in hand, Peter Leonard wrote a six-page short story he liked very much and asked a famous author for a few notes.
He got back a three-page critique that pointed out, among other problems, that Leonard’s characters came across “like strips of leather drying in the sun.”
“I didn’t write another word of fiction for 27 years,” Leonard says.
While it’s not true that the critique knocked him out of the writing business, Leonard admits the it was hard to take. After all, it came from his father, Elmore Leonard, one of the coolest dudes ever to put pen to yellow legal pad.
Truth is life dragged Peter Leonard away. He started his own advertising business, got married, had kids, looked up and realized it was 25 years later.
Read More>
permalinkFriday, June 26, 2009
Author Doug Stanton - Founder of the Traverse City National Writers Series
Traverse City Record-Eagle
Marta Hepler Drahos
Best selling author, Doug Stanton (Horse Soldiers) who also lives in the Traverse City area has created the Traverse City National Writer’s Series.
Stanton said the series is modeled after readings at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and will feature lively conversations with prominent writers—from novelists and short story authors to journalists and television writers—followed by audience q-and-a’s. It’s a departure from more traditional readings “with the author droning on,” he said.
“This is really the wave of the future and the way people enjoy reading writers, not necessarily in bookstores in folding chairs,” he said.
Elmore and Peter Leonard kick off the series Sunday night with a joint appearance.
permalinkStanton said the pair’s Traverse City appearance will be one of about six series events a year, along with an annual celebration featuring a panel of several writers and series scholarship winners. In a nod to the help he himself received from a scholarship, he said proceeds from the series will benefit college-bound writing students in Traverse City Area Public Schools and Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools.
“It just enlivens the local culture by having these writers come in and reminds us of the power of great storytelling and great writing,” he said. “And I really think that there’s someone out there who in 25 years will write something that will change lives and inform and entertain and move people.”
Sunday’s event at 6:30 p.m. will be followed by an “afterglow” reception in the lobby, where the authors’ signed books will be for sale. A highlight of the evening will be a silent auction in which the winners will have their names used in the Leonards’ next novels—an idea Stanton hopes will catch on with other guests.
“There’s intense interest in it already,” he said. “It’s a great idea, and that money goes back into the scholarship fund as well.”
Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students 21 and under. They’re available at the City Opera House, or treatickets.com and cityoperahouse.org.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Elmore and Peter at Traverse City Opera House Next Sunday
TRAVERSE CITY—Author Elmore Leonard comes to Traverse City for his first-ever appearance here June 28.
The Traverse City National Writers Series presents the crime novelist, author of newly published “Road Dogs,” and his son, Peter Leonard, author of the newly published “Trust Me,” at the City Opera House beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students 21 and younger; all proceeds will benefit college-bound writing students from the Traverse City Area Public School and the Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools. Tickets are available at http://www.cityoperahouse.org or by calling 941-8082.
Elmore Leonard has written more than 40 novels in his nearly 50-year career. Doug Stanton, co-founder of the writers series, said he’s “one of the towering novelists of our time with a world following. We’re really lucky to have him.”
Peter Leonard is working on his third novel; his first, “Quiver,” features scenes from Leelanau County.
A reception features hors d’ouevres (included in the ticket price) and a cash bar of wine and beer. Signed copies of the authors’ books will be for sale.
permalinkWell-loved characters return in Elmore Leonard’s latest
By Andrew Z. Galarneau
BUFFALO NEWS BOOK REVIEWER
For a half century, Elmore Leonard has surprised readers with characters that are hard to forget.
Leonard’s masterful powers of terse description let them rise from the page. His trademark dialogue — terse, canny, chockablock with screenplay-ready moments — has them breathing in your ear.
But there are other good writers.
Where the old master truly outshines his peers is his deft touch at building, loading and springing a good surprise. Leonard’s readers can never be too sure how his collection of criminals, schemers and officers of the law will deal out the ending.
Read More>
permalinkSaturday, June 20, 2009
Elmore Receives Owen Wister Award from Western Writers of America
Elmore received the Owen Wister Lifetime Achievement Award by the Western Writers of America at their annual event in Oklahoma City. Fellow western writer and Michigander, Loren Estlemen picked up the award for Elmore.
Elmore has been honored in the past by WWA for Hombre which was voted one of the top twenty five westerns of all time.
Another award at the event which is of interest to Elmore fans is Best TV Western Miniseries/Movie. Last Stand at Saber River from Elmore’s 1959 novel of the same name was ranked seventh on a list topped predictably by Lonesome Dove. The first Desperado movie which Elmore wrote came in 40th.
Click “Read More” for the unedited Western Writers of America press release describing all the winners.
Read More>
permalinkWednesday, June 17, 2009
VICELAND BLOG: ELMORE LEONARD IS THE MAN: A Nice Long Talk with the Best Crime Novelist Ever
permalinkWe won’t waste much time on an intro here because you should already know who this guy is. Let’s just say this: Elmore Leonard, now going on 84 years old, is still cranking out perfectly detailed, thrilling, and hilarious stories of criminals at a pace that’s hard to believe. He writes dialogue so well you’d think it’s transcribed from real conversations, and he knows more about how to craft a living, breathing character out of thin air than God (or any other higher power—more on that later).
We recently sat with him in his hotel room in midtown New York City, where he was taking a short break from the tour to promote Road Dogs, his new novel. It brings together three previously existing Leonard characters—Jack Foley, Cundo Rey, and Dawn Navarro—in typically powder-keg fashion in Venice Beach, California. As with everything he’s done, it’s compulsively readable and 100 percent entertaining.
Road Dogs Tour: Lemuria Books, Jackson, MS
Left to right: Peter Leonard, Elmore Leonard, Michael Connelly and George Pelacanos. Thanks to Joe Hickman for the photo
Story to follow…
permalinkMonday, June 15, 2009
Making It Up as I Go Along - Elmore’s AARP Essay Online
AARP MAGAZINE
Making It Up as I Go Along
By Elmore Leonard, July & August 2009
The author of such classics as Get Shorty and Out of Sight advises writers: the best ideas come from the most unlikely places
At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.
I think of characters who will carry a story. The plot comes out of the characters, their attitudes. How they talk describes who they are. Dialogue, in fact, is the element that keeps the story moving. Characters are judged as they appear. Anyone who can’t hold up his or her end of a conversation is liable to be shelved, or maybe shot.
In 1995 my researcher, Gregg Sutter, handed me a photo of a deputy U.S. marshal standing in front of the Miami federal courthouse, a pump-action shotgun held upright against her hip. “She’s a book,” I said to Gregg.
But first I auditioned her in a short story. The marshal becomes Karen Sisco. We watch her fall for a charter-fishing-boat skipper who turns out to be a part-time bank robber with a big ego. Karen takes care of business—no emotional harm done, she’s cool—and I begin thinking about Karen for a book.
“I write with a pen. I can’t imagine looking at a screen as I write.”
While I was looking at ways to introduce her, six convicts broke out of Glades Correctional Institution in Palm Beach County. I got details from Jim Born, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent, now a novelist himself. Jim describes how the six—all Cubans—tunneled out, and it gave me a direction for the book. Put Karen there, in the middle of the escape.
In Out of Sight, she arrives at Glades on business as convicts are coming out of the ground, sirens wailing, spotlights sweeping the area. Karen gets out of her car, opens the trunk to grab a shotgun, and a convict shoves her inside. He gets in with her, and Karen meets Jack Foley. These two will be what the book is about. Jack’s buddy gets behind the wheel, and they take off.
For the trunk scene to work, it has to be positive, Foley and Karen natural, even funny without being cute. Karen says, “I’m not much of a hostage if no one knows I’m here.” Foley says, “You aren’t a hostage, you’re my zoo-zoo, my treat after five months of servitude.”
They go on like that, pressed together in the dark, chatting, disagreeing, but enjoying it. What they talk about reminds them of movies. Karen delivers Faye Dunaway’s key line to Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor: “Have I ever denied you anything?” As in the short story, Karen is falling for a bank robber, but this time it’s the real thing. I leave Karen and Foley thinking about each other. I know they’re not going to walk off into the sunset together; Foley will go back to prison. But I want them aching to see each other again. I want them to take time out from who they are and spend one night together. Then back to the reality of the plot.
A photo of a woman marshal with a shotgun, and a prison break, gave me what I needed to write a love story.
Leonard on Film
Get Shorty (1995)
“This movie showed you could deliver funny lines without the character knowing that he or she was funny.”Jackie Brown (1997)
“Quentin Tarantino, despite his manic style, put my book Rum Punch on the screen to great effect.”Out of Sight (1998)
“It had director Steven Soderbergh’s look, but it sounded like me. A great romantic crime story.”
I began training for the writing life in 1951, getting up at 5:00 a.m. and writing for two hours before going to work at an ad agency. My one rule: I had to start writing, get into a scene, before I could put the water on for coffee. Two pages a day in the early hours allowed me to turn out five books, all westerns, and over 30 short stories in the next ten years.
I read Hemingway every day to get into the rhythm of his spare style; then turned to Richard Bissell, who wrote his books much the same way but with a natural feel for humor.
In 1953 I wrote Three-Ten to Yuma and sold it to Dime Western for 90 dollars. Two film versions were made, 50 years and 50 million dollars apart. Both are good westerns, worth watching, but the remake misses the point of my short story: the good guy who gives his word with the odds heavily against him comes up a winner.
I began working on my eighth novel, Valdez Is Coming, sometime in 1967 and finished the book in seven weeks. It’s the only one I started knowing how it would end. It was the culmination of all those other westerns that dealt with the man who is misjudged until it’s too late. I’m not big on themes, but this was a natural for westerns. The movie in 1971 with Burt Lancaster is the truest to the book of the 20 or so adaptations of my work that have made it to the screen.
I was writing for the movies then, and a producer who missed out on the Valdez bidding asked if I could write another one, “sort of like Valdez, only different.” You wouldn’t think this kind of request motivating, but it is.
At the main library in Detroit I moved through rows of titles in the History room and stopped at a book called Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry M. Caudill. I opened it in the middle and looked at a chapter heading called “Moonshine and Mayhem.” I closed the book and held it against me so the chapter wouldn’t get away. I had in my hands the idea for my next book, The Moonshine War.
Then I drove to Kentucky with a writer friend of mine, David E. Davis, who introduced me to his uncle Jim Bill Simpson, a moonshiner for 40 years before he joined AA and gave up drinking. Jim Bill said, “What you do is shake the jar and look at the beads that form. When you see them half above and half below the surface, you know you’re looking at 90-proof corn whiskey.” My moonshiners in the book owe a debt to Jim Bill Simpson.
A lot of times I get characters and ideas for books from people I know or have read about.
For example, Maximum Bob borrows its title from Maximum Bob Potter, the hard-sentencing judge who gave evangelist Jim Bakker 45 years on 24 counts of fraud.
I had met Marvin Mounts, a Palm Beach County circuit court judge, who asked if I would give a talk at a local library. I accepted, we became friends, and remained so until his death in 2004. Now I had a judge helping me develop my own Maximum Bob, a lecher but entertaining. Marvin raised orchids on his wooded property. So does Bob, using them as lures, to entice girls to stop by his home for drinks.
Sometimes, when Marvin saw me in his courtroom, he’d bring up an issue for my benefit, something I could use. Marvin asked a man who robbed a bank how he was apprehended. The felon said he left the bank and a dye pack exploded, turned his take and the front of his clothes red. Marvin said, “Didn’t you try to clean the money?” The man said, “Yeah, I did. I was arrested shopping with a bunch of pink twenties.”
I began to add scenes. On a family trip to Florida, I had read a flier about Weeki Wachee Mermaids, girls who performed in a natural spring wearing mermaid tails. Gregg checked out the show and gave me a video. “You watch from an underwater theater,” he said, “the girls making mermaid moves, flipping their tails, sucking discreetly on air hoses.”
I was reading about channeling at that time. So I made Maximum Bob’s wife, Leanne—a former mermaid who panics when an alligator swims into the act—have an out-of-body experience and begin channeling a slave girl, Wanda Grace, who was devoured by an alligator 150 years ago. Wanda says, “I be back when you needs me, Leanne.” It drives the judge nuts hearing this squeaky voice coming out of his wife.
I thought my experiences in Hollywood would make a good novel. But I didn’t want to do it the same old way. I wanted to show that a total outsider could make it in Hollywood.
I knew a guy named Chili Palmer who worked for Bill Marshall, an old college classmate of mine who was now a private eye in Miami. Chili was a former loan shark who did surveillance on cheating husbands. They made quite a team. Marshall could not open his mouth without saying something funny. Chili could put on a look of cool menace whenever he wanted.
I took some of Chili’s backstory and created the book’s Chili Palmer, my shylock who traces a deadbeat to Hollywood and becomes a film producer. At the end of the book he’ll hire one of the many short leading men as his star. And that’s why it’s called Get Shorty.
Once I have an idea what the main character does, I say to Gregg, “See if you can find a high diver doing his thing without going all the way to Acapulco.” A few days later we were in Florida watching four divers put up their dive ladder at the Miracle Strip Amusement Park. They told us what it was like to dive 80 feet into a 9-foot tank of water. One diver said, “Put a 50-cent piece on the floor and look down at it. From up there, that’s what the tank looks like.”
The diver I came up with is Dennis Lenahan in Tishomingo Blues. He’s getting too old for this business, but once he witnesses a murder from his diving platform, he’s drawn into the plot.
Making it up as I go along. I write with a ballpoint pen and scratch out lines and paragraphs, revising them as I make my way into the story, the characters letting me know what comes next. Once I’ve handwritten a page until I like it, I put it on the IBM Wheelwriter 1000. If I composed on a typewriter I’d spend more time x’ing out lines than writing. I don’t use a word processor, I can’t imagine looking at a screen as I write. I have to look at the words on unlined yellow paper, my only writer affectation. I used to aim for five clean pages in an eight-hour day. I’ll settle now for three in a somewhat shorter day, continuing to revise to maintain the sound I want.
After 58 years you’d think writing would get easier. It doesn’t. If you’re lucky, you become harder to please. That’s all right, it’s still a pleasure.
Elmore Leonard’s latest novel is Road Dogs (William Morrow, 2009).
permalinkSunday, June 14, 2009
Elmore and Peter Leonard at Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson Today
Crime-novel writer watches son follow in his footsteps
Jackson Clarion Ledger
Jerry Mitchell
jmitchell@clarionledger.com
Since joining the family business several years ago, Peter Leonard has bumped off plenty of people - cutting some in half with shotguns, striking down others with arrows and blowing off heads with handguns.
“I can’t believe I have discovered something that I enjoy so much so late in life,” said the 57-year-old author of Quiver and Trust Me. “I can’t believe I get paid to do something I love.”
It’s a business his 83-year-old father, Elmore Leonard, knows well. He’s been killing people off since the 1950s, first in westerns (such as 3:10 to Yuma) before switching to wise-cracking crime novels (such as Get Shorty and Out of Sight).
The father and son are signing books at 5:30 p.m. today at Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson along with two other best-selling authors of crime fiction, Michael Connelly (The Poet) and George Pelecanos (Way Home). Readings from the four authors will follow.
“Probably the true heir to Dashiell Hammett, James Cain, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald is Elmore Leonard,” said John Evans, owner of Lemuria. “I think he extended the hard-boiled tradition just as each of those writers extended their predecessors.” Although Elmore Leonard set his book Tishomingo Blues in Mississippi, few may know about his ties here.
“I’m from New Orleans originally,” he said. “When I was younger, we’d drive down to Bay St. Louis. My relatives are all there.”
When Hurricane Camille hit in 1969, “it took the whole front off their house, and they put it back on,” he said.
Thirty-six years later, Katrina was even more destructive, he said. “This time, they had to start over from scratch.”
He began his career in Detroit as an advertising copywriter before turning to novels. He sold his short story, 3:10 to Yuma, for $90, or 2 cents a word.
Hollywood paid him $4,000 for the rights to turn it into a 1957 film starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. A half century later, Hollywood did a remake with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.
“When they made it again, we got $5,000, and we had to go and beg for that,” Leonard said.
He still starts his novels on plain yellow pads before typing them.
His new book, Road Dogs, is getting the best reviews he’s had in years. The novel includes reappearances by several characters, including Jack Foley, famously portrayed by George Clooney in the movie Out of Sight.
“He said he doesn’t want to do it again,” Leonard said. “I sent him the book and inscribed it, ‘George, Jack Foley is looking for you.’ “
Leonard is now writing a book about pirates, tentatively titled Djibouti. “It’s a beautiful name,” he said. “If I can get by, I’ll use it.”
Peter Leonard is hardly the first son to follow his father into the book business. For instance, Stephen King’s son writes novels under the pen name Joe Hill.
“I think he’s nuts,” said Elmore Leonard. “He should use King.”
In college, Peter Leonard enjoyed writing fiction as an English major but never pursued it because of his father’s talent and fame. “I didn’t see myself as ever being good enough to do it,” he said.
He tried advertising instead, attracted to the simple and striking advertising by Volkswagen. “I thought they were clever,” he said.
He worked for advertising agencies, “selling cars, beer and booze,” he said. “After four years, I decided I want to do more than just write ads.”
He and a friend started their own advertising agency, Leonard, Mayer & Tocco, and soon they were doing advertising for Volkswagen and others.
More than a decade ago, he felt himself growing bored with advertising. He started writing screenplays as a hobby but found little success.
Finally his father remarked, “Writing scripts is like learning to be a co-pilot. You have no control. The project is always steered by somebody else.”
His father suggested writing novels.
“I didn’t take his advice right away,” he said. “I waited three years and wrote three or four scripts.”
Finally, out of boredom, he turned one of his screenplays into a book.
“I thought, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll fail,’ ” he said.
He asked his father to read his novel. “He would call me every day,” he said. “He’d say things like, ‘These characters are great,’ or, ‘You have a sound. It took me 15 years to get a sound.’ “
He has found a valuable sounding board in his father, who once suggested changing a character’s name from Dewan to Dejun.
“It was amazing,” he said. “He became a different person.”
Peter Leonard is becoming a full-time novelist at the same time a decline in advertising business is forcing him to shut down his advertising agency at the end of this month.
“Every one of my kids, all five, are out of work,” Elmore Leonard said. “Two of them were with Peter. Detroit has fallen on hard times, except for sports.”
permalink
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Reel Toronto: Killshot
permalinkToronto’s extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.
Killshot Does Not Live DOWN to Expectations
Daily Variety
BYLINE: JOE LEYDON
Long delayed and barely released—- if, indeed, a fleeting five-theater run in Arizona actually qualifies as a release—- “Killshot” earns points simply for not living down to expectations. Despite reports of disastrous previews, desperate reshoots and repeated re-editing, this surprisingly solid and mostly satisfying crime drama will play best with viewers who are attracted by its marquee cast but know little or nothing about its negative advance buzz. While it may be cold comfort to the talents involved, this ill-starred Weinstein Co. production should find an appreciative aud as a DVD rental and cable-TV staple.
Buy Killshot here.
Read More>
permalinkThursday, June 11, 2009
Elmore and Peter on WDET-FM/Detroit Today Show; Elmore on NPR/Talk of the Nation
Busy day for the guys.
First, Peter and Elmore together on WDET-FM/Detroit Today Show with Craig Fahle.
Then Elmore alone for NPR/Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan.
Both interviews are very solid. Elmore is particularly funny on Conan’s show and cracks him up with his take on Hollywood.
UPDATE: Talk of the Nation Transcript. Download here.
permalink
Leonard, Leonard, Pelacanos and Connelly in Jackson, Ms - June 15
Jackson Free Press
by Melia Dicker
When a best-selling author comes to Jackson, it’s news. When three best-selling authors come in one exclusive event, it’s historic.
On Monday, June 15, New York Times crime-fiction best-sellers Elmore Leonard, Michael Connelly and George Pelecanos will share a stage at Lemuria Books. Elmore’s son Peter, also an acclaimed novelist who made his writing debut last year, will join them. The authors, who each released a new novel this spring, will sign their books and participate in a panel discussion. Afterward, they will be available to chat with the public.
Lemuria owner John Evans says that while he’s hosted his share of famous authors since he opened the store in 1975, he’s never had an event of this magnitude. The four authors have never appeared together before, and the Lemuria event is the only public appearance they have scheduled.
Read the web version or the print version.
permalinkWednesday, June 10, 2009
Fire in the Hole - Where Do I Buy It?
Folks are becoming more interested in Fire in the Hole because of the possibility that it might be made into a television series, if the pilot gets picked up. But there is confusion about where to find this story since it is not a novel. Fire in the Hole can be found in the excellent story collection, When the Women Come Out to Dance. You can order it here. It’s worth the price, just for this one novella, but there is so much more.
permalink
Sunday, June 07, 2009
A Conversation with James Mustich: The Barnes and Noble Interview
“Let us try to narrow it down,” Martin Amis once began a review. “Elmore Leonard is a literary genius who writes re-readable thrillers.” Leave it to Leonard to make the famously argumentative British novelist so agreeable; indeed, who would argue with Amis’s assessment? Certainly not me, nor, I suspect, the countless other readers who have been engaged, amused, and invariably delighted by the seemingly endless stream of outrageous characters and fantastic plots that flow with seeming ease from Leonard’s pen. Stick, LaBrava, Glitz, Freaky Deaky, Riding the Rap, Out of Sight, Tishomingo Blues—a mere list of titles will bring a smile to the faces of those who’ve sampled the addictive charms of Elmore Leonard.
Read the Interview here.
permalink
Road Dogs Audio - “Pitch Perfect Delivery”
Road Dogs
- Narrated Peter Francis James
—HarperAudio, $34.99
—6 hours, 45 minutes, unabridged
permalinkElmore Leonard, master of gritty, bad-guy dialogue, is a perfect fit for full audio treatment, as this snappy production proves. It’s convicts and Cubans in Road Dogs, the tale of Florida inmate Jack Foley, who thinks he’s looking at 30 years in the slammer—until he befriends another inmate, a wealthy Cuban criminal named Cundo Rey. Now on the outside and living in Venice Beach, Calif., the two men are joined by Rey’s common-law wife, who claims to be a psychic. The best part of this audio isn’t the plot. It’s Peter Francis James’s pitch-perfect delivery of Leonard’s hilarious if often NC-17-rated convict chitchat.
Elmore Leonard - High Definition Crime Writer
The Kansas City Star
By LESLIE McGILL
Special to The Star
Elmore Leonard is to other crime writers what HD is to black-and-white TV. His spare, dialogue-heavy writing conveys the complexity, depth and personality of his characters without wasting a word. His plots are much less important than his unique style of populating them.
“Road Dogs” (262 pages; Morrow; $26.99) is a perfect example: The tension comes from wondering whether his characters will do what Leonard has made us expect them to do. The fact that Leonard can make waiting so compelling is proof of his genius.
Read More>
permalinkSaturday, June 06, 2009
Elmore at Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest Today
When: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Where: Printers Row, in the blocks surrounding Dearborn and Polk Streets
What to expect: More than 250 authors—from Elmore Leonard to Neil Gaiman to Dave Eggers to Kyle Beachy—will be on hand.
permalinkComfort to the Enemy - Think Twice, But Buy It
He likes it, he doesn’t like it, he likes it!
The Daily Telegraph (London)
BYLINE: Jake Kerridge
Comfort to the Enemy
by Elmore Leonard
182pp, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
But another staple character in Leonard’s books has been the taciturn figure, usually a lawman, from whom it is easier to extract teeth than any revelation about what he thinks or feels. The ideal of this type is the US marshal Carl Webster, whose adventures, ranging from tackling robbers as a teenager in Twenties Oklahoma to hunting Nazis in wartime Detroit, have been chronicled in The Hot Kid and Up in Honey’s Room.
Read More>
permalinkFriday, June 05, 2009
Jack Foley is Back
Manly Daily (Australia)
Reviewer: John Ruszczyk
Leonard pulls a few slick moves to get Foley out of jail, but what the heck. I certainly wanted to see him on the streets again. We get him and Latino gangster Cundo becoming mates in jail. Cundo even helps Foley out by letting him stay at his flash pad in LA. There he meets up with Cundo’s main squeeze, a beautiful, dangerous psychic con-artist.
Everyone is working some angle to get Cundo’s money and not to share it. A street hustler and a neo-Nazi add moments of violence as Foley works his way through.
Leonard’s dialogue is so witty and sharp your face will have creases from grinning while you read.
permalink
Road Dogs Tour: Schuler Books, Lansing, MI - 6/4/2009
Coming as soon as I write it!
permalink
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Like father, like son - - Leonards make writing a family business
Lansing City Pulse
by Bill Castanier
In the 56 years Detroit native Elmore Leonard has been writing, he has developed all kinds of rules about his craft. At a recent event in Ann Arbor, he told the audience with his characteristic deadpan wit, “I leave out everything people skip over.”
Another rule, which he follows religiously, is that he makes himself invisible. “I let my characters speak for themselves,” he said.
And speak they do. Leonard, 83, author of “Get Shorty” and “Be Cool,” is considered one of the best writers in any genre at using dialogue to move a story. “Dialogue was the easiest thing for me,” he said. “It was really fun for me to hear people talking.”
Read More>
permalinkKillshot IS on Blu-Ray; Top Rental in Canada
Despite what I said in a recent post, Killshot is available on Blu-Ray, it’s just that Weinstein is not putting it out, Alliance Films in Canada is.
Apparently, “KILLSHOT” is selling and renting well on DVD and BluRay in Canada in particular.
As an insider e-mailed me: “Maybe the Weinsteins’ did have a hit movie on their hands until they f**ked-it up!”
permalink
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
I Make It Up As I Go Along - Elmore Essay in AARP Magazine
The July/August 2009 issue of the AARP Magazine has been mailed out to AARP members, containing an Elmore essay, “I Make It Up As I Go Along.” The title of the essay says it all. For non-members, the essay will be online on June 15.
Here’s the beginning:
permalinkAt the time I begin writing a novel the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.
I think of characters who will carry a story. The plot comes out of the characters, their attitudes. How they talk, describes who they are. Dialogue, in fact, is the element that keeps the story moving. Characters are judged as they appear. Anyone who can’t hold up his or her end of a conversation is liable to be shelved, or maybe shot.
In 1995 my researcher, Gregg Sutter, handed me a photo of a deputy U.S. marshal standing in front of the Miami federal courthouse, a pump-action shotgun held upright against her hip. I remember saying to Gregg, “She’s a book.”
“10 Questions with Elmore Leonard” - GoodReads.com
GoodReads.com
Elmore Leonard, grand master of sleazy characters and rapid-fire dialogue, is more than just a mind-blowing crime writer. He’s an inspiration. After pioneering the western genre in the ‘50s, including the short story Three-Ten to Yuma and the novel Hombre, Leonard turned to a new arena with crime thrillers such as Get Shorty and Out of Sight and spurred countless movie adaptations of his books. What makes the former ad-man so distinctive? His character-driven style and lean, mean prose. Leonard talked with Goodreads about his new book, Road Dogs, and explains why writing pads must be bought in bulk and how George Clooney needs some sweet talking.
Here’s a totally right-on comment from this interview left by Joe:
permalinkElmore always praises Hemingway, and many see Hemingway as among the greatest writers in history. But pick from among dozens of sentences, paragraphs, pages, even chapters from Leonard and ask this: Why isn’t Leonard equally revered? In fact, why isn’t he seen to have surpassed Hemingway, having mastered writing as tight and powerful as it gets, and with the humor Hemingway lacks?
There’s no humor in this passage, but look at the first paragraph of Pagan Babies and ask if Hemingway ever wrote anything better or more powerful.
THE CHURCH HAD BECOME a tomb where forty-seven bodies turned to leather and stains had been lying on the concrete floor the past five years, though not lying where they had been shot with Kalashnikovs or hacked to death with machetes. The benches had been removed and the bodies reassembled: men, women and small children laid in rows of skulls and spines, femurs, fragments of cloth stuck to mummified remains, many of the adults missing feet, all missing bones that had been carried off by scavenging dogs.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Elmore at Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row Lit Fest This Saturday
This coming Saturday, June 6, Elmore will be a guest speaker at The Chicago Tribune Printer’s Row Lit Fest, billed as the Midwest’s largest literary event. This outdoor festival offers the opportunity to hear authors speak and debate their works. It also features booksellers, poetry readings, exhibitors, kids activities, cooking demos, wine tastings, and much more.
Hours are from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on June 6-7.
The Ballad of Emmett Long
Back in 2005, Elmore’s friend and barber cut a track called, The Ballad of Emmett Long. Elmore does the intro. Listen to it here or here.
permalinkSunday, May 31, 2009
The Road Dogs Tour in Review
permalinkMay 12
NEW YORK, NY
Barnes and Noble, Lincoln CenterMay 13
NEW CANAAN, CT
New Canaan Library (w/Mike Lupica.) .May 14
PHILADELPHIA, PA
Free Library of Philadelphia. Listen to Podcast.May 18
LIVONIA, MI
The Metro-Detroit Book and Author LuncheonMay 19
BIRMINGHAM, MI
Border’s BooksMay 21
GROSSE POINTE, MI
Border’s BookMay 28
ANN ARBOR, MI
Ann Arbor District Library
“The Sky Gray But So What”
She took his hand and held on to it, both smiling, very pleased to meet one another. The sky gray but so what. Things were looking up for Foley, fresh out of stir. He couldn’t stop grinning at this confident girl who lived by herself and posed in the nude. He said, “Why don’t we go inside.”
Buy Road Dogs.
permalinkSaturday, May 30, 2009
Leonard low-lifes come back for one more crime
This reviewer is getting an early start as the Weidenfeld & Nicolson edition (UK) of Road Dogs won’t be out until November.
Weekend Australian
BYLINE: Graeme Blundell
Road Dogs
By Elmore Leonard
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 262pp, $32.99
IN Elmore Leonard’s famous essay, 10 Rules of Writing, the veteran crime writer says, ``My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.’’ His advice also includes the hint, ``Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.’‘
In Road Dogs, his 46th novel, Leonard launches three characters from previous novels on an inevitable course towards a pile-up. The writing is so dense, the mental space so exactly proportioned, it’s impossible to skim ahead without feeling disoriented.
Read More>
permalinkElmore on Charlie Rose 5/29 (Transcript)
The Charlie Rose Show
May 27, 2009 Wednesday
SHOW: THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW 11:00 PM EST
Crime novelist Elmore Leonard discusses his newest novel, “Road Dogs.”
CHARLIE ROSE, HOST: Welcome to the broadcast.
CHARLIE ROSE: We continue with Elmore Leonard, the man called America`s best crime novelist. His newest novel is called “Road Dogs.”
Read More>
permalinkFriday, May 29, 2009
Road Dogs - “A Saucy Stew”
by Katherine Dunn, Special to The Oregonian
Elmore Leonard’s many virtues include the fact that he is among the few living American crime writers one can read comfortably while trapped in an airplane next to a snob from the English department. No impulse to hide the lurid dust jacket or mutter disclaimers required when one has “Dutch” Leonard in hand.
Somewhere in the midst of his 43 novels, Leonard became—through no concern of his own, I’m convinced—respectable. Saul Bellow admired his ear for dialogue. Todd Grimson says Leonard perfected the minimalist style and is only half joking when he declares that the Nobel Prize committee should consider Leonard. The praise has been so consistent for so long and from such serious sources that any taint of genre has been washed away.
Read More>
permalinkRoad Dogs Tour - Ann Arbor Public Library - 05/28/09
photo credit: Deborah Morgan
Joel Lyczak reports: “The appearance at the Ann Arbor District Library went over great. The hall where the interview was conducted filled to capacity, so the overflow was sent to another room where we watched the interview on a big screen. This interview was one of the best, if not the best. It really helped having Loren Estleman chair the event. There were a lot of younger people taking notes during the interview.
I ran into Dave Geherin at the signing portion of the evening. David wrote an early biography of Elmore. It was nice having someone to chew the fat with while the crowd got their books autographed.”
Peter Leonard added this: “Good turn out, 250 people.I probably signed thirty books and Elmore must have signed a hundred.”
Read more about the event in The Ann Arbor Chronicle.
permalink
Elmore “On Point” with Tom Ashbrook (PODCAST)
Podcast of Elmore on NPR radio show, On Point with Tom Ashbrook. Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, joins the conversation from Cambridge. This is an amazing pairing. Pinksy gets Elmore on a very poetic level, and talks about themes and actions and “moral geography.” All the while, Elmore is saying, “Poetry, I don’t get it.” He even asks Pinsky for tips on writing poetry. Don’t miss this interview.
permalink
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Elmore on Charlie Rose Last Night (VIDEO)
Watch Elmore on Charlie Rose here.
permalink
Elmore and Peter with Loren Estelman in Ann Arbor Tonight
Elmore and son Peter will appear at the Downtown Ann Arbor Library tonight at 7 PM. The two will be interviewed by acclaimed Michigan writer, Loren Estleman. After a discussion of their careers and new books, they will be signing. Books courtesy of Aunt Agatha’s Mystery Bookshop, cosponsors of the event.
permalink
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Road Dogs — “a twisting tale of seduction and betrayal”
The New York Times Book Review
Elmore Leonard’s latest novel stars three familiar voices in a twisting tale of seduction and betrayal
by Robert Pinsky
Illustration by Joe Ciardello
The virtuoso storyteller Elmore Leonard has been rightly praised for his technique: hot, fast narrative, tasty dialogue, strokes of character so quick they’re invisible, never a detail that doesn’t move things ahead. It’s wonderful how much Leonard can do with a five- syllable sentence like “She left with the check.”
But a good book should also be about something. Although it isn’t always mentioned, Leonard’s books have subjects. “Road Dogs” is about the varying degrees of truth and baloney in human relationships. Sometimes the truth or the baloney is lethal. Droll and exciting, enriched by the self-aware, what-the-hell-why-not insouciance of a master now in his mid-80s, “Road Dogs” — underlying its material of sex, violence and money, and beyond its cast of cons and thugs and movie stars — presents interesting questions.
Read More>
permalinkElmore on Charlie Rose Tonight
permalinkTuesday, May 26, 2009
Killshot DVD in Stores Today
Finally after years of torture and neglect, The Weinstein Company has released Killshot on DVD. No extras, no director’s cut, just a good movie that did not deserve it’s fate.
Read Elmore’s thoughts about Killshot here.
“A Tough, Uncomprising Picture.” Charles Taylor reviews Killshot in The New York Times here.
“Shelved! Why ‘Killshot’ Deserved Better” - Film School Rejects outlines the Killshot saga here.
Why was Killshot shelved?
The easy answer is that while the Weinstein’s are part marketing geniuses, they’re also part retarded. The more complex, legitimate, and politically correct answer is a combination of poor test screenings, too many chefs in the kitchen, a deadly curse, and a marketing plan based around Rourke’s inevitable Oscar win for The Wrestler.
Buy Killshot on DVD at The Elmore Leonard Bookstore.
permalink
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Road Dogs: “When it comes to popular fiction, Elmore Leonard remains out of sight.”
Christian Science Monitor Online
By Erik Spanberg | May 23, 2009 edition
Once again Elmore Leonard revs the plot, dials up the banter, and produces a
novel you’ve got to stay up all night to finish.
Elmore Leonard made George Clooney a movie star. And he’s written a few good books along the way, too.
Clooney, of course, flopped as Batman and seemed to be striking out in his bid to transform himself from a famous TV E.R. doc into a box-office attraction. What set him on the path to becoming Danny Ocean and countless other lovable rogues was his star turn as Jack Foley in 1998’s “Out of Sight,” an adaptation of one of Leonard’s numerous breezy, brilliant page turners.
Read More>
permalinkElmore Leonard’s larcenous lot is on the loose again, in “Road Dogs”
Providence Journal
By Sam Coale
Here they come again: Elmore Leonard’s larcenous, murderous, plot-spinning, yarn-spouting robbers, ex-cons, bimbos and lawmen in a terrifically funny and quirky novel that delights and shocks as much as it entertains and astounds.
Jack Foley, America’s most famous bank robber — 127 by his count — is back from the novel Out of Sight. He’s joined by Cundo Rey (the Cat Prince from LaBrava), the rich Cuban go-go dancer and hustler who pays a good lawyer $30,000 to get Foley out of jail and send him to Venice Beach in California to meet Rey’s squeeze, Dawn Navarro, who’s been chaste, more or less, waiting for him for eight years.
Rey and Foley protect each other’s backs, literally, while in prison, fellow road dogs and buddies. “It’s a guy thing,” Dawn realizes. She’s deep.
Read More>
permalinkFriday, May 22, 2009
Road Dogs Tour - Border’s Grosse Pointe - 05/21/09
Elmore and Peter’s Grosse Pointe Borders event was small by comparison (to Border’s Birmingham) but the chairs were filled and the audience was appreciative, so what more can you ask?. This was the first time Elmore and Peter appeared together when they were both promoting a book. Elmore had appeared several times with Peter when he was promoting his first book, Quiver and once for his new book, Trust Me.
Now they were on the same footing. The two have worked out a routine which is polished and keeps things moving with little gems of insight, that only a father and son team can offer. We will be posting a recording of the event soon.
Joel Lyczak, one of the founders of The Dutch Forum was there as well as my good friend, The El-Tee from Detroit Homicide.
As always, there were some good questions and plenty of books to sign.
Joel had a copy of The Treasure of Mungo’s Landing for Dutch to sign. He got it on eBay. Now he truly has all the published stories…we think.
permalinkElmore Has Breakfast and Reads the Paper
After a busy week on tour around Detroit, Elmore has a good breakfast and reads the paper, before jumping back into DJIBOUTI.
permalinkThursday, May 21, 2009
Elmore and Peter, Tonight at Border’s Grosse Pointe
Borders Books
17141 Kercheval Avenue
Thursday, May 21, 2009 - 7:00 PM
Discussion and Signing
Road Dogs’ full of stock characters and lots of fun
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
Americans have long held a fascination with the criminal underworld, vicariously living out criminals’ lives through books, television, movies and exposes of real-life crimes. Elmore Leonard has satisfied our thirst for such stories with more than 40 books. In “Road Dogs,” he continues to feed this passion with his signature wit, tremendous plays on language and twisting plot lines. Anyone who saw the movie “Get Shorty” should be familiar with Leonard’s electrifying style.
Read More>
permalinkWednesday, May 20, 2009
Road Dogs Tour - Border’s Birmingham—5/19/09
Even thought the Road Dogs tour began in New York, Elmore’s hometown gig at Border’s Birmingham has always been the highlight of the tour, going all the way back to the Cuba Libre tour stop on Jan. 16,. 1998, which had the added significance of being decreed “Elmore Leonard Day,” by the state of Michigan.
At this Border’s event, Peter Leonard appeared with his father although he had just had a signing in April there for Trust Me, his new novel. Peter thought of it as Elmore’s show, but the audience did not make that distinction as they were treated to a unique literary act.
Any Leonard appearance at Border-s Birmingham always draws a good crowd, and this one was no exception. The audience was treated to a lot of inside scoop and fresh insights into Elmore’s amazing career and Peter’s emergence as a novelist.
After an hour of conversation and questions, the two settled back to sign books. This went on for an hour and a half for Elmore, as a good number of collector’s with bags of books were in attendance. Elmore signed them all.
permalinkThe Friends of Eddie Coyle Finally Available on DVD
We take a slight break today from all the Road Dogs mania to celebrate the long awaited release of The Friends of Eddie Coyle on DVD. Buy a copy at the Elmore Leonard Book Store.
The San Francisco Chronicle (California)
DVD Reviews / The Friends of Eddie Coyle
BYLINE: Walter Addiego
“The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” a fine crime novel by George V. Higgins, was published in 1972 and made into an outstanding movie a year later. A former newspaper reporter and later an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston, Higgins won praise from colleagues like Elmore Leonard and David Mamet, especially for his dialogue. This film, directed by Peter Yates, does honor to the book. It’s set in Boston’s Irish American underworld and involves a small-time gunrunner forced to become a police snitch. It is stark, realistic and resolutely downbeat. Yates’ work is lean, and he has a nice way with action sequences. He also makes great use of locations in and around Boston. Among the film’s other assets is a fine performance by Robert Mitchum as the title character, and he gets good support from Peter Boyle and Richard Jordan. This Criterion release is the film’s premiere on DVD. Besides the restored high-def transfer, the disc features commentary by director Yates and a booklet with a critical essay and a Rolling Stone profile of Mitchum.
