{"id":275,"date":"2011-11-14T22:43:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T22:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=275"},"modified":"2012-06-09T11:27:57","modified_gmt":"2012-06-09T11:27:57","slug":"charles-rzepka-interviews-elmore-leonard-part-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/?page_id=275","title":{"rendered":"The Elmore Leonard Interviews, Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crimeculture is delighted to be able to offer substantial extracts from a series of interviews that Professor Charles Rzepka conducted with Elmore Leonard in 2009-10. There were four separate interviews, arranged here in nine parts. Read the Introduction to the Elmore Leonard Interviews.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Parts: \u00a0Aug 2009<\/span>\u00a0\u00a01<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a02<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0 3<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 Sept 2009<\/span>\u00a0\u00a04<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0 5<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Jan<\/span>\u00a02010<\/span>\u00a0\u00a06<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a07<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0 June 2010<\/span>\u00a0\u00a08<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0 9<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This is the first half of the interview that took place in Bloomfield Village, MI, 29th September 2009. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Djibouti\"<\/a>Some pages of Leonard\u2019s novel-in-progress, Djibouti<\/em>, are on his desk when I arrive.\u00a0\u00a0Leonard begins by expressing his excitement at what he\u2019s doing with the plot.\u00a0\u00a0His protagonist, the documentary\u00a0film-maker\u00a0Dara, and her assistant, Xavier, are filming and interviewing pirates off the coast of Somalia.\u00a0\u00a0After some detailed discussion of the characters and events of the novel, we turn to Leonard’s early westerns.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Could I ask a couple of questions about your earliest work?\u00a0\u00a0Why Indians?\u00a0\u00a0Your first western stories are focused on Apaches, and Native Americans and aboriginal people seem to come up again and again in your writings either directly or indirectly. You mentioned Franklin de Dios, from\u00a0Bandits<\/em>, who’s obviously a really important character to you.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0In that book, yeah.\u00a0\u00a0Was that San Salvador or Nicaragua?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0That was Nicaragua, and he was a Miskito Indian.\u00a0\u00a0And there\u2019s Armand Degas–I think he’s one of the\u00a0best conceived\u00a0characters you’ve ever created–and others like Nester Soto, from\u00a0Cat Chaser<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL: I like those guys.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR: What is that about?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, because I can make them talk in the present tense, for the most part.\u00a0\u00a0They know just enough English.\u00a0\u00a0Cundo Rey is the big one.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So just the sound of their voices in your head?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But why does that appeal to you?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I don’t know.\u00a0\u00a0I remember back in the ’50s when I was writing westerns, short stories for the most part, and my agent in New York said, “Please, no border stuff.\u00a0\u00a0They don’t want Mexicans.”\u00a0\u00a0And I was dying to do the Mexicans in a lot of border stories.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0For the voices, and because the setting reminded you of\u00a0For Whom the Bell Tolls<\/em>?\u00a0I think I read somewhere that you thought the landscape was like Spain.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, that’s right.\u00a0\u00a0And I just thought those border stories were good.\u00a0\u00a0But they wanted the kind of stories that appeared in the\u00a0Saturday Evening Post<\/em>, the serials.\u00a0\u00a0Like the movies starring Jimmy Stewart.\u00a0He played a number of cowboy roles, and I didn’t think he was right at all.\u00a0\u00a0Cowboys were all young kids.\u00a0\u00a0But that’s what the magazine wanted.\u00a0\u00a0That kind of \u201chigh plains\u201d stories, not border stories.\u00a0\u00a0But I liked Apache Indians and different tribes and they were all down in Arizona and New Mexico.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But it couldn’t have been just the sound of their voices, was it?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I didn’t have Apaches talking that much.\u00a0\u00a0They were something else to deal with, but they were bad, as far as we were concerned, and they had their own way of dressing with the band around their head. And they were always stealing horses and raiding settlers, and so on, which they probably had every right to do, but they’re the bad guys in all the movies.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

\"All<\/a>CR:\u00a0\u00a0Last time I was here you mentioned\u00a0All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>which was obviously one of your earliest literary influences, and at a very young age, if you’re talking about writing a play in 5th grade.\u00a0\u00a0That’s really precocious.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL: Yeah, I was very influenced by that.\u00a0\u00a0I remember Slim Summerville in the movie eating beans and they were happy, even though there were casualties, without saying they were happy because of the casualties, because there were more cans of beans then for them.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Was there a special scene you were trying to recreate?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Can you describe it?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0It seems to me it was the hero going out, crawling under the desks, no man’s land, and getting caught on the wire, and he couldn’t get out.\u00a0\u00a0And this other guy, this coward, goes out and saves him.\u00a0\u00a0I hope it wasn’t the other way around where he goes out and saves the coward.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0You made me go back and read\u00a0All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em>\u00a0because you had talked about this coward.\u00a0\u00a0And the only one I found was the corporal, Himmelstoss.\u00a0\u00a0Do you remember him?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0He was this tight-assed little martinette, back home when the recruits were being trained, and he liked to bully them.\u00a0\u00a0But then they went to the front and became hardened veterans.\u00a0\u00a0He got sent up after them, and they teased him and humiliated him and he behaved like a coward.\u00a0\u00a0He had a scratch on his chin and he pretended he was wounded so he\u2019d be sent back home.\u00a0\u00a0But then he redeems himself.\u00a0\u00a0He goes out and brings back the body of a friend of the guy telling the story, Paul.\u00a0\u00a0So since you had asked me, “Wasn’t there a coward in the play?” it made me think that Himmelstoss was somehow important to you in your reading of\u00a0All Quiet<\/em>.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0You just said, “I hope it’s not the other way around.”\u00a0\u00a0Why did you say that?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Because it’s such a better story if the coward goes out there to get him.\u00a0\u00a0I know that now, but did I know it then?\u00a0\u00a0That’s what interests me.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0What made you think of Himmelstoss?\u00a0\u00a0In all the episodes to choose from, why was he an important character?\u00a0\u00a0It’s as though he almost gave you the idea for the play.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, it was probably Lou Ayers who went out and got caught on the wire, and then the\u00a0guy\u00a0who rescued him, in my class, was Zenon La Joie. His uncle or something like that was related to Napoleon La Joie, who for a long time was the best second baseman in the majors.\u00a0\u00a0But this is back in the \u2018teens I think.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So did Zenon La Joie play Himmelstoss?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Maybe, I suppose.\u00a0\u00a0And everybody made fun of him.\u00a0\u00a0He always had ink around his mouth.\u00a0\u00a0That was one reason why I chose him, because everybody made fun of him.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0They sort of picked on him.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, so this is like Himmelstoss, yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So did they bully him?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No, we didn’t have real bullies in our class.\u00a0\u00a0But the one black guy I made a German because I didn’t know what to do with him because I was just up from Memphis.\u00a0\u00a0I didn’t know any black guys.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Was this the first time you’d met a black person, when you were in school with one?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Oh definitely, definitely in school, yeah.\u00a0\u00a0Leo Madison, Leo always had a soggy looking sandwich.\u00a0On the outside you could see the jelly showing.\u00a0\u00a0Terrible looking sandwich, but he just sat there and ate them.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Did the other kids pick on him?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Were there any racist remarks?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0He was part of our group at school.\u00a0\u00a0At least he was around.\u00a0\u00a0He didn’t have much to say, though.\u00a0\u00a0But my friends who were in the same class, I would see after school or on weekends and so on.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But\u00a0Zeh-non<\/em>, is that how you pronounce it?\u00a0With the accent on the second syllable?\u00a0\u00a0Was he part of your group?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But other kids in your group or in the class would tease him because he was so odd?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0\u00a0He was always doing something with ink.\u00a0\u00a0We all had little bottles of ink in our inkwells, and we had pens that we would dip in to write.\u00a0\u00a0It was very difficult.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So when you first started writing were you still using a pen that you would dip in ink?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Just in school.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0It’s interesting that Zenon was eating what you were writing with.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yes, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0And got ink on his mouth.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, it makes sense. [Himmelstoss] was older\u2014what did you say,\u00a0he was a corporal?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0He was.\u00a0\u00a0A lot of the boys knew each other from school and their school teacher sort of brow-beat them into joining up to defend the Fatherland and they all grew to hate him, of course, once they saw what war was really like.\u00a0\u00a0But when they were first being trained, Himmelstoss\u2014he was the village butcher or something–would make them do these sadistic things like stand at attention in subfreezing weather without their gloves for half an hour, really horrible stuff.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0And made them clean up a big area with brushes while it’s snowing.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah exactly.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I remember that.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0And I think just before they left for the front they waylaid him, masked themselves so he wouldn’t recognize them.\u00a0\u00a0They beat him.\u00a0\u00a0They pulled his pants down and they spanked him, or they beat him with a birch rod or something.\u00a0\u00a0And he apparently never found out who did it.,\u00a0After they’d been at the front for several months, he shows up, and he’s a total greenhorn.\u00a0\u00a0He has no experience in combat, so his first reaction is to hide and pretend to be wounded.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s interesting that this struck you because Paul doesn’t spend a lot of time describing it in detail, just that Himmelstoss showed he could overcome his cowardice by retrieving the body of his friend.\u00a0\u00a0[.\u00a0. .]<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I don’t know if I ever read the whole book but I certainly remember his treatment of the troops before they went to the front, and that’s probably where I got it.\u00a0\u00a0But I saw the movie, of course, and then in ’34 it was serialized in the\u00a0Detroit Times<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0And I remember lying on the floor reading the paper, reading the story, but I’m sure I didn’t read the whole thing.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Was this before you saw the movie or after?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0After.\u00a0\u00a0I think it was after.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So maybe the scene you’re thinking of is a scene in the movie version, not in the book.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Maybe.\u00a0\u00a0But it’s such a good idea that they get back at the guy who was so tough on them.\u00a0\u00a0I think that’s what must\u2019ve appealed to me,<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

\"Big<\/a>CR:\u00a0\u00a0I want to get back to another person you mentioned who was obviously important to you when you were an adolescent, and that’s Maurice Murray, the guy who hung off the roof.\u00a0\u00a0By the way, I also took the time to get a DVD of the movie of\u00a0The Big Bounce<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0The first one.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0The first one.\u00a0\u00a0And you’re right.\u00a0\u00a0It is horrible.\u00a0\u00a0Just begin with the theme music.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL: I remember.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0It’s sort of this weird hybridization of Beach Boys and Mantovani Strings, and it\u2019s so incongruous, it is so off key for what is going on in the film that you can’t take any of it seriously. And Ryan O’Neal is completely wrong for Jack Ryan.\u00a0\u00a0He tries to look intimidating and comes off as a pool boy. But I’m really fascinated by Maurice Murray.\u00a0\u00a0Can you tell me more about him?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Oh, he was a year older than the rest of us.\u00a0\u00a0I know when we were around 12 or 13 he was 14 and he was just slightly bigger but he wasn’t a big guy.\u00a0\u00a0And he was kind of quiet and I can’t hear him right now.\u00a0My other friends, the Boisineau boys, Gerard and Jackie Boisineau, they lived in the apartment under the roof.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So they were the other two–you said there was like a gang of four?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0There\u00a0were\u00a0more than that.\u00a0\u00a0Phil Kozinski was one of them, and his dad was a judge in Detroit and Gerard Boisineau was my best friend.\u00a0\u00a0They lived two blocks away from Blessed Sacrament, the school was right behind the cathedral, which is still there but the schools are gone.\u00a0\u00a0There was the Cathedral, Catholic Central, and then this grade school, and it went to the 12th grade for girls.\u00a0\u00a0Eighth grade, the boys had to go somewhere else.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0And that’s when you went to the University of Detroit High School.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I went to Catholic Central first because it was right there.\u00a0\u00a0Then we moved, because we were living about a mile and a half south of there, toward downtown in an apartment building.\u00a0\u00a0And then we moved out to North Lawn, which was one block away from U of D High.\u00a0\u00a0And that was the best move I ever made, to go to school there.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But you knew Maurice before you left for high school, is that right?\u00a0\u00a0You guys were still at Blessed Sacrament.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, and then I don’t know what happened to him.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Do you remember how you met?\u00a0\u00a0Was it just that you were both in class together?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Did your families know each other?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0My family didn’t know any of my friends’ families.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Why is that?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, they lived so far apart and they were also on a different social level, because my dad was an executive with General Motors and Boisineau’s dad was a construction worker.\u00a0\u00a0I remember Girard saying one time, “My dad’s making $300 a month now.”\u00a0\u00a0Well, you know what that is.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0He was sort of proud of that.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I mean, it wasn’t bad then, but it wasn’t good.\u00a0\u00a0I don’t know what Maurice’s dad did.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So what else did you guys do besides hang off the roof?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, we had a big field where we would play guns and somebody would have to go out and find the other ones who were hidden and try and shoot them before he was shot.\u00a0\u00a0And then we played \u201chot cooloo,\u201d also called \u201chot ass.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0We played that on the street, on Woodward Avenue, just a couple of blocks north of the Cathedral where somebody would hide a belt–no, there was a belt involved but I don’t know if it was hidden–but at least one guy started out with the belt and had to find the other guys and swat them with the belt before they got back to the goal.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0That’s the \u201chot ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0And \u201ccooloo,\u201d I don’t know where that came from.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So it’s like a version of hide and seek, but with a really exaggerated tag.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, which then I played later with my kids but without the belt.\u00a0\u00a0We just played guns, we’d hide somewhere in the house and then go and try and shoot them before you’re found, hunter and hunted.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Have you ever played paintball?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0How are your kids right now?\u00a0\u00a0I remember last time we talked one of them was working at an ad agency that was not doing well.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, that agency folded and so now Peter\u2019s on his fourth book.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Peter’s the one who’s decided to be a writer.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0And he’s written two books that were–probably have one here–for . . . I can’t think of the name of the company.\u00a0\u00a0They did two and then he gave them his third book, which was better.\u00a0\u00a0It was set in Rome where he went to school for a while, but they let him go because evidently he wasn’t selling the way they expected or hoped.\u00a0\u00a0Which I think is the best thing that’s ever happened to us, because now his agent is going to take it to other places.\u00a0\u00a0Now he’s on his fourth book, which is about a former Nazi concentration camp [guard], a real heavy, real bad guy, but it takes place in the ’70s, and he has designed a Zeppelin, which is going to do something.\u00a0\u00a0I don’t know what, I forgot.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0I hope it doesn’t blow up.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I hope not.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR: You have another son, is he still living in Tucson?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Who used to be in a mime troop?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Mime, yeah. We all made fun of him because it was so dumb.\u00a0\u00a0They travelled around.\u00a0\u00a0Well, first they started here [in Michigan] and his partner was a black guy and they travelled around and put on all these little dumb skits.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0You sound like you were really supportive.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But he’s over that now, is that right?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0\u00a0Well then he became a sommelier, and he took the test and he went to the next step and then the restaurant closed.\u00a0\u00a0So now he’s looking for work, but he’s writing a book.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0He’s writing a book too.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, and he’s been writing it now for a year.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So when all else fails, they know they can write books.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0\u00a0They can, at least these two.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Well, they’ve seen dad do it.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Because I made it look easy.\u00a0\u00a0As Peter says–this is something he wrote for publicity, “Boy You’re On Your Way” is the name of it–he said he’d come in and see me and I’d be sitting at the desk with my feet on the desk with a T-shirt on that said–I’ve got to find it, \u2018cause it\u2019s good [rummaging, then reading] \u201cElmore in Levis and sandals and a dark blue Nine Inch Nails T-shirt talking enthusiastically about the opening scene of his new book called \u2018The Hot Kid.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0Watching my father I thought here’s a guy who really loves what he’s doing and I didn’t.\u00a0\u00a0Earlier that afternoon, during my presentation, the VW ad manager had taken my first campaign board and flung it like a Frisbee across the conference room, and I thought that was our best idea,\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR: So that must have been a little upsetting to your son when that happened.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well yeah, I’m sure it was.\u00a0\u00a0He was upset. Or do you mean this time, getting fired?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0That too.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No, he’s not upset at all.\u00a0\u00a0He’s happy about it.\u00a0\u00a0They weren’t doing anything for him, nothing.\u00a0\u00a0And he’s got Andrew Wylie, my agent in New York, behind him.\u00a0\u00a0So he’ll get going.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0That’s good.\u00a0\u00a0That’s a good start.\u00a0\u00a0[.\u00a0. .]<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0My dad had just finished the 6th grade when his dad died in an accident, in a sugar plantation accident.\u00a0\u00a0Dad wanted me to go to Princeton and become an engineer.\u00a0\u00a0I don’t even know if engineering is taught at Princeton.\u00a0\u00a0I doubt it.\u00a0\u00a0Some math, anyway.\u00a0\u00a0So he thought you needed that behind you to make it, because he was in automotive, in General Motors, and that seemed like a good background to him.\u00a0And he was an artist.\u00a0\u00a0He was\u00a0painting pictures\u00a0when his dad died and he had to quit doing that and go to work.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0His dad died when he was in 6th grade.\u00a0\u00a0And he was a painter already?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, he was a painter.\u00a0\u00a0He was painting scenes around New Orleans.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Could I see the pictures?\u00a0\u00a0You said you have some.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I’ll show you one after awhile upstairs.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So he had to stop doing that.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0\u00a0And I guess finally, he had to go to work early and then he took a correspondence course, and became an accountant.\u00a0\u00a0Then he went to Central America working for one of the fruit companies as an accountant, and then came back to New Orleans.\u00a0\u00a0During the war, World War I, he joined and was made a 2nd Lieutenant, and then married my mother.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Did he see combat?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No, never left Louisiana or Texas or wherever the camps were.\u00a0\u00a0He married my mother in Galveston.\u00a0\u00a0And that was it.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Did you have a good close relationship with your father?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No, not with my father but with my mother.\u00a0\u00a0My dad was travelling a lot and he didn’t read much.\u00a0That is, he read the paper and he read the\u00a0Financial Times<\/em>, and he read\u00a0Forbes<\/em>\u00a0and those magazines, but didn’t read what I was interested in.\u00a0\u00a0But my mother did and she joined the Book of the Month Club in, like, 1940.\u00a0\u00a0She was trying to write too, but her stories were so old fashioned they had no chance.\u00a0\u00a0Maybe in the ’20s they might’ve, but not in the ’40s or ’50s.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Did she try getting them published?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But they just wouldn’t take them.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0As you became more of a professional writer yourself, how did you feel about her writing, what did you think of it?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, I didn’t think she had a chance, but she certainly wanted to do it and she didn’t have any guidance and she couldn’t find any guidance.\u00a0\u00a0She couldn’t find the kind of story graphs that she wanted to write, that she could have written.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Did she read to you when you were young?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No, my older sister did.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So your mom was the one who really encouraged your interest in books and writing and modeled that for you, I guess.\u00a0\u00a0And your dad wanted you to go to Princeton for engineering, but you’ve got that engineering gene, don’t you?\u00a0\u00a0I mean here in\u00a0Djibouti<\/em>\u00a0you’ve got all this LNG tanker stuff.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, I don’t understand any of it.\u00a0\u00a0None of it.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But you must at some level or you wouldn’t know how to put it into your books so persuasively.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I mean that’s what it\u00a0is,\u00a0it’s a gas ship that could blow up.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But you seem interested in this stuff.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0I make excuses.\u00a0\u00a0For instance: \u201cYou seen a gas ship blow up?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Xavier asks. \u201cMy information comes from dah-dah-dah,\u201d says Billy.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBut you haven’t,\u201d Xavier said, \u201cactually seen an LNG gas ship set afire.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201cNot yet.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0So if the information I\u2019m using is wrong, there’s a reason in the story\u2014I can blame the character.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But I seem to recall reading somewhere that you once had a private client as\u00a0an\u00a0free-lance advertiser, you wrote gear shift ads for him and, from what I understand, really enjoyed that.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I enjoyed the idea that they would take this car with this Hurst shifter and go out and street race because just before I left Campbell-Ewald, Chevrolet was hot on the quarter mile track and I could write those descriptions, with the right words and \u201cpower sliding\u201d and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So it was the power of the drag racing that you really seemed to enjoy.\u00a0\u00a0Can you describe your mom and dad’s personalities or temperaments?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0My dad was dry, funny.\u00a0\u00a0When I was very young we had telling time.\u00a0\u00a0He would sit down and then I’d come in and sit next to him or on his lap or somewhere and I’d tell him what I did that day.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0And would this be at the end of every day?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0\u00a0Telling time.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Before dinner?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, when he was home.\u00a0\u00a0He travelled quite a lot picking out locations for dealerships: General Motors–Buick, Olds,\u00a0Pontiac.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0It sounds like he was warm and affectionate when he was around.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0\u00a0But we only got to know each other after I came out of the service; then we would play golf together and go to the bar after and have some beers, and it was fun.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0But he died young, right?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a01948.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Just a few years after you got out of the service.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Right, two years after.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So he didn’t live to see you succeed as a writer.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Didn’t see me write a word.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0That must be kind of tough, or do you ever think of it?\u00a0\u00a0Maybe it doesn’t occur to you to think of it.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, I’ve thought of it, but my mother saw it.\u00a0\u00a0My mother saw it happen.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Was she proud?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yes, she had a little shrine in the living room with the books, just the books on display.\u00a0\u00a0Everything but the rope, the [velvet] covered rope area roped off.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Your mom is also the one who told you about your secret friend, \u201cBoyee,\u201d and that moment from the first interview has sort of haunted me ever since.\u00a0\u00a0You said it was when you were in Oklahoma City, but you don’t remember this yourself.\u00a0\u00a0It’s just something you remembered your mother telling you, is that right?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I guess, because no, I don’t remember any scenarios with Boyee, but I must have told her that Boyee and I went somewhere and did something.\u00a0\u00a0I had friends.\u00a0\u00a0I wasn’t a loner.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n


\n<\/a>\"Killshot\"<\/a>CR:\u00a0\u00a0I don’t know anything about imaginary friends.\u00a0\u00a0I sometimes find myself in situations where I sort of will talk to myself, but the reason [Boyee] has sort of stuck with me for the last several weeks is because I was just looking at\u00a0Killshot<\/em>again to teach it in class and right at the beginning of\u00a0Killshot<\/em>, you write, \u201cThe Blackbird told himself he was drinking too much because he lived in this hotel and the Silver Dollar was close by, right downstairs.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0But the way in which he tells himself this is almost the way in which you would think he’s talking to an imaginary friend, because the very next sentence starts with this imperative, “Try to walk out the door past them.\u00a0\u00a0Try to come along Spadina Avenue, see that godamn Silver Dollar sign, hundreds of light bulbs in your face and not be drawn in there.”<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, but he’s talking to himself.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0True, but there’s a sense in which when you have your characters talking to themselves I almost feel like they’re having imaginary conversations and they’re making themselves kind of an imaginary friend to bounce things off of.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, it’s easier for me than writing in a narrative sense.\u00a0\u00a0I want to keep the sound of my characters as much as possible all through, and I don’t want to show myself.\u00a0\u00a0I don’t want to use any kind of language that they wouldn’t.\u00a0\u00a0But almost 100% of the authors do.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR: When you’re imagining your character talking to him or herself, though, it’s like you’re listening to an imaginary friend.\u00a0\u00a0It’s like you’re listening to these voices in your head.\u00a0\u00a0In Paul Challen’s book [Get Dutch<\/em>] you describe that process as almost like a case of multiple personality: \u201cSo once I get into it and I’m the character or both of the characters, or all of them, it’s just a lot of fun and I get it going and try to entertain myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, it’s got to be fun.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Like you’re all these imaginary characters all in your head at once, and obviously it is a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0And it’s not taking it too seriously also.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Well, that really comes across.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I think it’s very evident in this book [Djibouti<\/em>] that would ordinarily be a very serious book.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

\"Road<\/a>CR:\u00a0\u00a0It’s hard to avoid being serious, what with terrorists, and Al-Qaeda, and all the rest of it.\u00a0\u00a0I brought along\u00a0Road Dogs<\/em>, which I really enjoyed. Here you’ve got Dawn Navarro, she’s turning into one of your favorite characters, I think, talking to herself in the mirror.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Oh, yeah.\u00a0\u00a0She puts her eye makeup on.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0She becomes that cross-dressing pharaoh?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Who was probably gay, she wanted to be a guy, I think.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So she’s talking to herself in the mirror and she’s trying to come up with a good parting line for Jack, when she kills him.\u00a0\u00a0A lot of your characters do\u00a0this,\u00a0rehearse their parting lines when they’re about to blow someone away.\u00a0\u00a0Wayne does it in\u00a0Killshot<\/em>\u00a0where he imagines sneaking up on Armand and Richie Nix.\u00a0\u00a0So Dawn is imagining blowing Jack Foley away and she cocks the gun and says, [reading]:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

“So long Jack, it’s been fun?\u00a0a\u00a0ball?\u00a0it’s\u00a0been nice knowing you?”\u00a0\u00a0She said, “It’s been niceknowing<\/em>\u00a0you.”\u00a0\u00a0She said “It\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0nice taking showers with you.”\u00a0\u00a0She was making it hard, trying to think instead of just saying it.\u00a0\u00a0How about I love you Jack, but you’re no $6 million dollar man.\u00a0\u00a0That wasn’t bad, he’d get it.\u00a0\u00a0She said to her image, \u201cDid you ever think you were greedy?\u201d “Not really.”\u00a0\u00a0“You ever think of yourself as a cold bitch.”\u00a0\u00a0“When I have to be, but I’m never really cold.”\u00a0\u00a0“You think, when you’ve put in eight long years living by\u00a0yourself.\u00a0. .?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201cPoor you.”\u00a0\u00a0“Well, it’s true.\u00a0\u00a0I waited eight fucking years for something to happen and had to do it myself.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201cPoor, poor you.”\u00a0\u00a0“Shut up.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou ready?\u201d \u201c Let’s go, girl.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/h3>\n

Teddy Magyk, too, he does the same thing when he’s getting ready to blow away Vincent Mora, the cop who put him away in\u00a0Glitz<\/em>–he keeps delaying and putting it off, but finally talks to himself in the mirror.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

So you’ve got these characters talking to themselves as though they’re talking to an imaginary friend.\u00a0\u00a0Here’s Dawn talking to her literal reflection in the mirror.\u00a0It’s Dawn, but it’s also a part of Dawn that is somebody else.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL: Yes, it is, yes.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

\"Killshot<\/a>CR:\u00a0\u00a0Since we talked last I watched the DVD of\u00a0Killshot<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0How do you assess that as a movie version of your book?\u00a0\u00a0You’re not always happy with how these are translated to the screen.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Well, her husband was wrong, he was just kind of there and they tried, in the picture, to show that they were at odds with one another.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0They were getting a divorce.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR: I didn’t think that worked.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0It didn’t.\u00a0\u00a0It didn’t, because there was no evidence of it.\u00a0\u00a0Why are they like this?\u00a0\u00a0It’s much better in the book.\u00a0\u00a0They’re in love.\u00a0\u00a0They fight a little bit, so what.\u00a0\u00a0He throws a drink, but then she wants to throw a drink but she doesn’t want to hit the carpet.\u00a0\u00a0And he makes a comment about that.\u00a0\u00a0And then it’s funny.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0It’s hard to see why they want to get back together in the movie.\u00a0\u00a0The other thing I noticed was there are things that [the movie makers] need to invent or underline over and over again to provide motivations for characters.\u00a0\u00a0For instance, they seem to think we have to understand that Armand Degas hangs with Richie Nix because he feels guilty about his brother being killed. They mention it over and over and over again.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou remind me of my kid brother,\u201d he tells Richie Nix or he has flashbacks to his kid brother getting killed in the hit in Toronto.\u00a0\u00a0Did you mean that to come out in the book at all?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0So somebody who did the screenwriting, I suppose, or the director decided to really latch on to that as a motivation for Armand. In the book, however, your use of interior monologue makes us understand why he wants to hang out with Richie, and it\u2019s not guilt over his brother.\u00a0\u00a0Richie is Armand\u2019s ticket out of this miserable sense of himself that he has.\u00a0\u00a0None of that can come through looking at it on the screen: you can’t get in their heads.\u00a0\u00a0But overall I didn’t think it was a bad movie.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No, except that Wayne\u2019s there at the end to shoot Armand, which is what Bruce\u00a0Willis\u00a0wanted to do.\u00a0That’s why I wouldn’t give it to him.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, I don’t like the end.\u00a0\u00a0Wayne and Carmen both get in the \u201cKillshot,\u201d unlike the ending in the book.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No, it’s got to be her alone.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR: And what did you think of making Donna Mulry this young black, sexy girlfriend of Richie’s?\u00a0\u00a0Do you remember her in the movie?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Oh, yeah, that was all wrong because in the book you know what she was.\u00a0\u00a0She was kind of a cross-eyed blonde with a lot of hair and that’s what she was.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Sort of like his stepmom.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR: She would buy his clothes for him.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0Oh, [the movie] was all wrong, putting him with a good-looking black girl.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Because I guess they couldn’t figure out why we would believe Richie Nix would hang out with this older woman, old enough to be his mother, but that’s so clearly part of his personality in the book.\u00a0\u00a0He’s been in foster homes.\u00a0\u00a0His stepmom abandoned him and he’s looking for a mom. So I thought that worked really well in the book and they missed all of that in the movie version.\u00a0\u00a0And they dropped some of the best lines, like when Armand gets the drop on Richie in the car. \u201cWell,\u201d Armand says, “I shoot people sometimes.”\u00a0\u00a0They kept that line, but they dropped Richie\u2019s comeback: “You’re just the guy I’m looking for.”\u00a0\u00a0That turns the whole scene, just grabs it and turns it like a glove, turns it inside out in one line.\u00a0\u00a0And there’s no sense of humor.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0I remember asking the director why he dropped that and he said, \u201cI know.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0He said, \u201cThat was a mistake,\u201d because he was trying to stay very close to the story.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0Have you gotten to the point where you sort of distrust what Hollywood’s going to do with your books?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0I’m always optimistic.\u00a0\u00a0But in this book [Djibouti<\/em>] they’re talking about Dr. Strangelove and Dara says, \u201cGod, I don’t know, I got so tired of these people,\u201d the pirates, I forgot what she said about being their characters.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

CR:\u00a0\u00a0They’re trying to play a role or something?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0And Helene says they’re having fun.\u00a0\u00a0They’re all having fun,\u00a0they love their roles.\u00a0\u00a0And that’s why they’re overdoing them.\u00a0\u00a0That was it, the overdoing of the dialogue.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crimeculture is delighted to be able to offer substantial extracts from a series of interviews that Professor Charles Rzepka conducted<\/p>\n

Continue readingThe Elmore Leonard Interviews, Part 4<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":779,"featured_media":0,"parent":83,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/779"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/275\/revisions\/477"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}