{"id":3463,"date":"2012-06-02T16:03:42","date_gmt":"2012-06-02T16:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/?page_id=3463"},"modified":"2012-09-29T21:43:22","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T21:43:22","slug":"the-elmore-leonard-interviews-part-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/?page_id=3463","title":{"rendered":"The Elmore Leonard Interviews, Part 3"},"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 third part of the interview that took place in Bloomfield Village, MI, 12th August 2009. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

CR: Is it generally a good thing when a character in your books makes it personal, the way Frank [Renda] makes it personal with Mr. Majestyk?\u00a0 Or is that\u2026<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 I think it has to be, don\u2019t you think? \u00a0I mean he has to feel it\u2019s very important.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CR:\u00a0 Oh, well.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 But when you use the term making it personal, it\u2019s like there\u2019s a — well, think of Raymond Cruz and Clement Mansell in City Primeval<\/em>, which is one of my favorites, right up there with Killshot<\/em>. Clement keeps goading Raymond to make\u2026<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 And he even says, \u201cIt\u2019s just you and me,\u201d when he\u2019s sitting in the squad room.\u00a0 “It\u2019s really, it\u2019s only about you and me, nobody else gives a shit about us.”<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 But there\u2019s something, I feel almost disappointed with Cruz at the end of that book, that he contrives to set up this kind of gunfighter scenario that he remembers from The Gunfighter<\/em>, and it\u2019s all going to be straightforward and clean and we\u2019re going to draw and so forth.\u00a0 And then he ends up killing Clement because Clement\u2019s reaching for a bottle opener, which to me takes — it\u2019s funny, but it takes all of the, what, the meaning out of it.<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 Well, how are you going to make it more important?\u00a0 If Clement pulls a gun and he shoots him, he\u2019s got to shoot him.\u00a0 Why does that make it better?\u00a0 If he pulls out this bone handled bottle opener and still shoots him, well, he didn\u2019t know it was a bottle opener, it\u2019s more like the way real life is.\u00a0 It\u2019s more like police work.\u00a0 It\u2019s more like —<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 But see, I think what happens is that Clement Mansell outsmarts Raymond Cruz.\u00a0 He manages to get Raymond to stop behaving like a professional cop and take it personally.\u00a0 I think of him in contrast to somebody like, Bryan Hurd, who\u2019s the cop hero in Split Images<\/em> whose girlfriend is killed, Angela Nolan? [. . .]\u00a0 There\u2019s a moment where Eljay, who\u2019s his superior, after Angela\u2019s killed, he\u2019s temped to make it personal and Eljay says, \u201cA good cop knows how to do his job and not fuck up.\u201d\u00a0 And in fact, what happens is that Bryan Hurd manages to get Robbie Daniels on the murder of Walter Kouza, so he does it by the book, he doesn\u2019t take it into his own hands.\u00a0 So to me, there\u2019s a difference there between someone like Raymond Cruz and someone like Bryan Hurd, and Hurd strikes me as much more professional, much more a cop, whereas Raymond turns it into this kind of movie scenario where the two gun slingers are —<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 That might have been what I was thinking, I mean, and I did, because Raymond Cruz was — “Bryan Hurd” was a name I made up after Swanny says, \u201cYou gotta change this guy\u2019s name.\u00a0 ‘Raymond Cruz’ was bought by,” I forgot what studio bought him.<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 So they bought the rights to the name?<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Well, when they buy the book, they own everything in it.\u00a0 So Swanny said, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to change this guy\u2019s name.\u201d\u00a0 So I went through the book and I changed “Raymond Cruz” to “Bryan Hurd,” but I missed one place in the book, because someone wrote to me and said, \u201cWho\u2019s Raymond Cruz?\u00a0 Who\u2019s Raymond?\u201d\u00a0 And I left it just sort of to see if readers are on their toes.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

CR: This is interesting, because if Bryan Hurd is supposed to be Raymond Cruz, it\u2019s almost as though [Cruz] learns how to be a cop [in this book] rather than [remaining] a movie gunslinger.\u00a0 To me, it\u2019s a kind of a cop-out<\/em> when Raymond lets Clement out of the underground vault, and then lures him to the apartment to stage this kind of gunfight, because to me it says that Raymond hasn\u2019t done his job well enough.\u00a0 He’s been trying to get that murder weapon with Clement by doing everything by the book, but he has to give up and resort to this kind of movie version of gunfighting.<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 Hmm.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Well, I should have thought of another way.<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s a perfect — it\u2019s a wonderful ending.<\/p>\n

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

CR:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you should have thought of another way at all.<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0\u00a0 I like the young girl who is Clement\u2019s girlfriend. [. . .]\u00a0 And then near the end she stands in front of the mirror and talks to herself, and she kind of works herself up a little bit.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CR:\u00a0 Like Teddy Magyk, in Glitz<\/em>, when he finally says, \u201cI\u2019m going to take care of Vincent Mora.\u201d \u00a0He stands in front of a mirror and has a conversation with himself while he\u2019s sort of admiring himself in the mirror.<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 Oh, yeah.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Teddy Magyk, yeah.\u00a0 He\u2019s the most obvious bad guy.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to psychoanalyze him at all to find out why.<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 Has something to do with his mother.<\/p>\n

EL: Oh, definitely.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 He hates his mother.<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 But he depends on her.\u00a0 He hasn\u2019t left home, he\u2019s still his mommy\u2019s boy.<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 Yeah, he is.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 What was it about Glitz<\/em> that made it such a big hit?\u00a0 I mean that was your big breakthrough novel, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

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

CR:\u00a0 The one that pushed you over the top and made you a household name?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>EL:\u00a0 Yeah, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 The two before could have been the breakthrough, La Brava<\/em> and Stick<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

CR: I\u2019m surprised LaBrava <\/em>particularly wasn’t — so it\u2019s just chance that Glitz<\/em> is the one that did it?\u00a0 There\u2019s no way to predict these things?<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 It seems to me the two books, Don Fine was the publisher who really pushed me and said he was going to sell me, and he did.\u00a0 And LaBrava<\/em> I thought was a good book. \u00a0But it just happened that Glitz<\/em> . . . it just took another book.\u00a0 Now everyone’s getting on the [Best Seller] list with the really weak stuff, I think.<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 What do you mean?\u00a0 In what way?<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 Well, the people who have a million printing and get on the list, you know, up at the top right away, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re very good at all.\u00a0 [. . .]<\/p>\n

CR: \u00a0That\u2019s why I don\u2019t look at books on the Best Seller list anymore.\u00a0 I mean half the time, it\u2019s not stuff — I just find somebody I like and I will just read.\u00a0 But speaking of people we like to read, what\u2019s Ezra Pound doing in Pronto<\/em>?<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how he got into it, but I wasn\u2019t reading Ezra Pound before.\u00a0 I started to read Cantos<\/em> when one of my characters picked it up and didn\u2019t know what the hell it was about, you know, but met Ezra, old Ez.<\/p>\n

CR:\u00a0 But you must have heard of The Cantos<\/em> or you wouldn\u2019t have had Harry Arno pick it up.<\/p>\n

EL:\u00a0 Well, sure.\u00a0 Well, yeah of course, I heard of him, but I\u2019d never been able to make any sense of Pound. [Only] little parts.<\/p>\n

CR: I\u2019m nowhere near as knowledgeable as Ezra Pound, it\u2019s like you\u2019d have to be Ezra Pound to [read him]. I had the same experience with Finnegans Wake<\/em>.<\/p>\n

EL: Well, yeah. What about Ulysses<\/em>?<\/p>\n

CR: Ulysses<\/em> I can — no, Ulysses<\/em>, well of course, you know, I didn\u2019t pick up Ulysses<\/em> and read it on my own. I read it in class.<\/p>\n

EL: But Finnegans Wake<\/em> is much more obscure.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

CR: So you went and read The Cantos<\/em> because your character —<\/p>\n

EL: Well, I didn\u2019t read all of them.<\/p>\n

CR: But some you did, obviously.<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CR: Because you\u2019ve got [Harry Arno] quoting The Cantos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

EL: Yes. Ones that are less obscure so that as Ezra\u2019s going to the men\u2019s room, [Harry] holds the door open and quotes a couple of lines and Ezra just keeps walking.<\/p>\n

CR: Does the figure of Ezra Pound resonate with you, or is he important to you in any way? I mean, why didn\u2019t Harry Arno pick up Shelley or —<\/p>\n

EL: Well, because Ezra lived in Italy in that town where — what was the town?<\/p>\n

CR: Rapallo.<\/p>\n

EL: Rapallo, yeah, with his wife and the Germans moved him in with his girlfriend, too. The three of them. That would have been something, wouldn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

CR: Yeah, Harry thinks it must have been something, too. Did you visit that area just before writing the book?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah. Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n

CR: And that\u2019s what gave you some of the inspiration for it?<\/p>\n

EL: Well, I knew Harry was going to Italy, and a friend of mine, Richard Guindon, used to do a cartoon in the Free Press<\/em> four times a week, he said, \u201cWhile you\u2019re over there, would you go to Rapallo please and get me a,\u201d he wanted a particular kind of espresso maker. He said, \u201cYou\u2019ll love Rapallo. It\u2019s different, it\u2019s where Italians go.\u201d<\/p>\n

CR: And did you like it?<\/p>\n

EL: Yes. I did very much. And that\u2019s the only reason. I thought, \u201cGood, I don\u2019t want to go to Rome. I don\u2019t want to set the scenes in Rome. There\u2019s just too much to deal with. I\u2019ll have to pick out a neighborhood and so on.\u201d [. . .]<\/p>\n

CR: So is Gregg Sutter still doing your research for you?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah, he wants to go to Djibouti.<\/p>\n

CR: Has he been? Not yet?<\/p>\n

EL: We\u2019ve got so much Djibouti stuff that I don\u2019t think he needs to go, because he\u2019ll have to stay there for a while to really get a feel for what the — but I think parts of it are like old New Orleans. The French influence in Djibouti, the legionnaires were there for a hundred years before \u201977 when it became independent.<\/p>\n

CR: This is another feature of your writing that I find really interesting, your interest in facts. I was reading on the website, and I guess Gregg\u2019s in charge of your website, there was something\u2026<\/p>\n

EL: Which I\u2019ve never seen.<\/p>\n

CR: Oh, you haven\u2019t? You don\u2019t have web access?<\/p>\n

EL: I don\u2019t have a computer. Christine does, but neither of us really knows how to work it.<\/p>\n

CR: Well, there\u2019s a little paragraph or two describing your progress on Djibouti<\/em> and he says, \u201cElmore has reached an impasse with two female characters who are\u201d . . . it sounded as though they\u2019re too busy telling facts and you couldn\u2019t figure out how to get past this block.<\/p>\n

EL: Well, I\u2019ve certainly been aware of them, not wanting them to simply give information, to be themselves, and the one, of course, is the documentary film maker, and she\u2019s busy a lot, so she doesn\u2019t have all the lines. So I give her assistant, Xavier, a six-foot-six black man, 72, 73 years old who was a seafarer and he\u2019s been through this area probably 20 times or more. And the other person is the girlfriend, Helene. Helene is the girlfriend of Billy Wynn. Billy Wynn is a billionaire with a yacht, a $2 million sailing yacht–it\u2019s $2 million because of all the equipment he has on it to find out things.<\/p>\n

CR: So he\u2019s spying?<\/p>\n

EL: No. But he\u2019s sort of working on his own. He wants to be important and he wants to do something important.<\/p>\n

CR: Sounds like a lot of Elmore Leonard characters.<\/p>\n

EL: And he has a lot of, not operatives, but he has people that he can call anywhere and find out things. So he\u2019s ahead of most of the people in the book outside of maybe the CIA. But there\u2019s only so far one embassy person, a woman who is, she\u2019s a something-something security officer, and she knows what\u2019s going on that my documentary film maker comes to tell her about. She\u2019s ahead of her.<\/p>\n

CR: I see.<\/p>\n

EL: So they are doing some work. They are paying attention. And Helene is, Billy has put her on the boat, they start out in Marseille, she flies over and gets on the boat, and he\u2019s going to take her around the world, and if she doesn\u2019t complain or get seasick, he might marry her. Well, Helene figures, what the heck, it\u2019s worth a try, and she\u2019s 35 and she looks like she\u2019s in her 20\u2019s, she\u2019s a runway model, but she\u2019s smart enough. Except he only has champagne aboard the yacht and she\u2019s getting smashed every day on champagne and getting tired of it. And then every once in a while, they\u2019ll meet, she and Dara will meet, Dara\u2019s the film maker, they\u2019ll meet in some port and talk, and she\u2019ll tell him about Billy, how Billy reminds her so much of General Jack D. Ripper in — the picture is about an intercontinental bomber that\u2019s on its way\u2026<\/p>\n

CR: Oh, Dr. Strangelove<\/em>.<\/p>\n

EL: Dr. Strangelove<\/em>. And he talks about precious bodily fluids. And you think the guy is a little nuts, and this is all, almost all of it we get from Helene, it\u2019s her point of view of the [guy] but when he does talk, he\u2019s kind of show-off more than anything else. [. . .] But I like this guy. I didn\u2019t know what to make of him at first, but I like him and he\u2019s having a good time, and he is serious though, he gets serious like General Jack D. Ripper. And Helene and Dara talk about the movie. Dara said, \u201cYou know, they were all playing a part. You could see them playing a part.\u201d And Helene said, \u201cYeah, but God, they had so much fun doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

CR: Do you sometimes or regularly find yourself caught in a tension between the desire to provide information and the desire to let characters speak just naturally?<\/p>\n

EL: Well, that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about, yeah, really. I\u2019m trying to make, I want this to sell to the movies, too. So I\u2019m aware of that. I\u2019m aware of the visual effects of this. All the way. I\u2019m not trying to write literature. I\u2019m trying to write, what\u2019s the word, something fiction, entertaining fiction, but trying to make it sound as real as possible. That these people are not being funny, but they are. They can\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n

CR: In all your books you seem to have a kind of drive to master all the facts. I\u2019m surprised at how often you\u2019ll start writing a book about something that I don\u2019t see anything about previously, well, like Civil War reenactments in Tishomingo<\/em> Blues<\/em>, obviously there\u2019s an awful lot of, there\u2019s a lingo, there\u2019s a jargon, there are roles, there are rules. I mean, first of all, you had to get all the Civil War facts straight.<\/p>\n

EL: Then I went to reenactments.<\/p>\n

CR: And then you went to — or did Gregg go, too?<\/p>\n

EL: I went. We both went.<\/p>\n

CR: So there\u2019s a whole culture there that you have to —<\/p>\n

EL: And these guys talk so seriously about, this fella talking about his role in it, and he\u2019s a Confederate soldier with some outfit. And they never say anything funny. Never. And Robert Taylor recognizes that. These people were serious.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CR: So often I can almost feel this tension on the page between the desire to give the reader enough information to understand what\u2019s at stake and wanting the character to seem natural. I\u2019m thinking of, in Cuba Libre<\/em>, there is a whole paragraph in which Virgil Webster gives us the lowdown on the armaments and weaponry on the USS Maine<\/em>. And I\u2019m saying to myself, why is he doing all this? And I think it\u2019s because Elmore Leonard wants us to know all this stuff. And it strikes me, there are so many moments in your books where your excitement over the facts struggles sort of — it creates a problem for your desire to let your characters speak, and I\u2019m wondering, is this an issue with your writing or something you feel you have cautiously address very often?<\/p>\n

EL: I\u2019m not aware of it, because I\u2019m always satisfied with the pace, the way–what\u2019s the exposition and what isn\u2019t, you know, and I don\u2019t want to be too expository, definitely.<\/p>\n

CR: Could I ask about story and myth and legend, and their relationship to media in general? Like film versions of the Old West which sort of glamorized a century that you said you hate, I think, in one interview. You have no desire to have lived there or in that time period. There\u2019s that wonderful moment at the end of Gunsights<\/em> when it looks like we\u2019re going to have a shootout at the O.K. Corral, and then all of these Eastern reporters show up with the big box cameras and this Wild West performer comes up and offers Bren Early and Dana Moon parts in his Wild West show.<\/p>\n

EL: Mm-hmm. It\u2019s the end of the West.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CR: Let\u2019s see, do we have time to talk a little bit more specifically about Killshot<\/em>?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CR: One of the things I find, as I said earlier, that is really interesting about Killshot<\/em> is the way it looks as though it\u2019s going to be about Wayne Colson?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CR: Sort of a Jack Ryan, the cool, calm hero?<\/p>\n

EL: Yes. And I mean, he\u2019s an ironworker, and that guy, I mean you\u2019ve got to make an ironworker the main character, I thought. He goes up there, they have a drink in the morning and they go up on the iron, and — but she\u2019s smarter than he is and I saw that right away. I thought, \u201cOh God, why\u2019d she marry this guy?\u201d And so I started to think about that, and then I got into how they get along with each other, what they talk about and so on, and they really like each other, there\u2019s no question about that.<\/p>\n

CR: That\u2019s clear. There\u2019s never a question.<\/p>\n

EL: And she\u2019s the main character.<\/p>\n

CR: But how does she get to be the main character, this is what I find fascinating. When did you know that she was? Can you remember when it seemed to you that she was going to be taking over?<\/p>\n

EL: Well, when he left town.<\/p>\n

CR: When they run off to Cape Girardeau?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah. And he\u2019s more, when they got to Cape Girardeau, he\u2019s talking about what he can do there, jobs he can do, and he\u2019s into that. He\u2019s got to be working. He\u2019s got to be using his muscle. And she\u2019s thinking about her mother and she\u2019s thinking about other things, and finally she goes back to Detroit and there are the guys. There they are. Bruce Willis wanted to buy the picture. In fact, what studio was it, bought it for him [to play Wayne Colson]? I mean they optioned it, and he called me up and he said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you want me to do it?\u201d I said, \u201cBecause you\u2019ll make it your picture. You\u2019ll take over the end of the movie, and I don\u2019t want you to do that. I want her to handle the action.\u201d And he says, \u201cOh, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,\u201d or something like that. So nothing happened. And the option ran out and that was it, it was mine again. And I don\u2019t understand why my agent, but he was getting old at that time, he was losing his fight, because he could argue them out of — there was nothing signed but they said, \u201cYou gave us a verbal agreement that this is our property now.\u201d Well, he could have got out of that. Anyway.<\/p>\n

CR: So Bruce had plans to let Wayne continue to be the dominant character?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah. How can he be in the picture and not be the main guy?<\/p>\n

CR: Yeah. Right. But Wayne, I mean, when they go to Cape Girardeau, he becomes the “punk,” that is, he becomes the apprentice in the barge profession, which is only tangentially related to ironworking and riveting and skyscrapers and so forth. So he has to sort of start over again and he finds he can\u2019t, he\u2019s too old. And there\u2019s a similar kind of relationship between Armand and Richie, isn\u2019t there? Armand is really the professional who knows how it\u2019s done, and Richie is more like the punk, he\u2019s the one who — all he knows is he likes to shoot and kill people, and have a good time while he\u2019s doing it. And Armand keeps trying to teach him, but he\u2019s almost un-teachable, isn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n

EL: Oh, yeah. Definitely.<\/p>\n

CR: And this relationship, this sort of professional-apprentice relationship comes up over and over again in other books.<\/p>\n

EL: Yep.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

CR: In your own career, were there professionals that took you in-hand or that sort of helped you in that way as an apprentice writer? Or as a professional, do you have younger writers that you have that kind of relationship with?<\/p>\n

EL: Well, I talk to my son about writing, and that\u2019s about it. No, I\u2019ve never taught writing. I give talks, I\u2019ll go to U of D High every year and talk to them for two hours, who wants to be a writer, this is my experience. But it\u2019s not, no, I don\u2019t feel I have anything to impart. I wrote my 10 Rules<\/em>, and I think they\u2019re good rules to follow, and so do a number of writers. Pete Hamill thinks they should be put up on the wall of every city room. I said, \u201cI don\u2019t think of them as for non-fiction.\u201d He said, \u201cThey\u2019re good. They\u2019re good for any kind of writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

CR: Weren\u2019t there more at one point?<\/p>\n

EL: Well, when I did the 10 the first time, in 2000, I was a guest of honor at the mystery writers\u2019 convention. And that afternoon, in the hotel room, I wrote the 10 rules, but didn\u2019t elaborate on them at all. Just bare rules. And so then that evening, I presented them and they didn\u2019t go over too well, I mean nobody laughed that much, and then I came down off the stage and a guy said, \u201cCan I have those?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah, here,\u201d and so I gave him the sheet of paper.<\/p>\n

Then earlier this year, it was offered on, whatever it is, eBay or something–my original 10 rules for sale for $500 bucks, and so my researcher and a lawyer in L.A., who\u2019s probably my biggest fan, they went in together, well anyway, they bought it and they gave it to me.<\/p>\n

CR: That was nice of them.<\/p>\n

EL: So then, a couple of years later, after — say around 2003 or 2004, the Times<\/em> asked me to do a column on writers on writing, which is a continuing column about how do I write. And I thought, \u201cOh, I\u2019ll do the rules again.\u201d So then I elaborated on the rules and then my publisher thought, \u201cThese should be published,\u201d but they didn\u2019t do it right. They put it into a — it was a 94-page book with, I think the pages must have been 30-pound weight because it\u2019s so hard to open it and get into it, and it should be almost like a pamphlet. You know? And so, it\u2019s still kicking around. I think they must have reprinted it from time to time.<\/p>\n

CR: And you haven\u2019t thought of any other rules along the way that you want to have?<\/p>\n

EL: Well — no. You got 10. You have to have 10. I don\u2019t think these are my 11 rules.<\/p>\n

CR: Could probably get away with a dozen if you wanted to add a couple of them.<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CR: Just to return to Killshot<\/em>, I\u2019m curious about talking versus listening. You have characters like Wayne and Richie who talk, but aren\u2019t very good at listening. And Armand is quiet. Carmen is — they both have to put up with these talkative people. I mean in general, do you have a kind of feeling about talkative versus silent characters?<\/p>\n

EL: Well, it\u2019s just how I see the character at the time when I\u2019m writing the book. Yeah, Richie talks and doesn\u2019t have to make much sense.<\/p>\n

CR: Is talking a good thing, generally, or?<\/p>\n

EL: Well, all my books are all talking, that\u2019s what they are, they\u2019re talkies.<\/p>\n

CR: Or internal talking, too.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

CR: I\u2019m interested in Jeopardy<\/em> in Killshot<\/em>, I think you mention it in a couple of other books, too, where —<\/p>\n

EL: Right.<\/p>\n

CR: — the answer is in the form of a question.<\/p>\n

EL: Wayne gets it right because he went bird hunting in those states. And I heard from the woman who was on Jeopardy<\/em> and she was so surprised to read about that particular program.<\/p>\n

CR: Another important theme in Killshot<\/em> seems to be signs. You\u2019ve got Armand looking for a sign and the phone call comes from the Mob to go to Detroit to kill Papa, which I think is really, the more I read that book, the more poignant that becomes because he has no father and what sets him down on this road to ruin is his going to Detroit thinking it\u2019s a sign for a change in his life. You have characters all the time who want to change their lives or become a different person.<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CR: But I\u2019m bringing up the signs also because there\u2019s a character in Road Dogs<\/em>, Dawn Navarro, who also appears in Riding in Rap<\/em>, and she\u2019s a fortune-teller.<\/p>\n

EL: Right.<\/p>\n

CR: So she reads signs.<\/p>\n

EL: Yes.<\/p>\n

CR: Where did Dawn come from? Did she just appear out of nowhere?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CR: Or is she based on anybody you know?<\/p>\n

EL: I love the name, Dawn Navarro. In, yeah, Riding the Rap<\/em>, but I didn\u2019t think that she had a big enough part in Riding the Rap<\/em>, so I wanted to use her again in more of a starring role, so that\u2019s how that happened.<\/p>\n

[. . .]
\nCR: But I was wondering, are we supposed to believe she does have psychic powers, or is Rayland Givens correct when he says, \u201cYou do just what I do, but you think it\u2019s magic or psychic\u201d?<\/p>\n

EL: I don\u2019t know. Because in Riding the Rap<\/em>, I wasn\u2019t sure. But she\u2019s on the phone with someone and she says, \u201cTurn the light on. I can\u2019t see you.\u201d And I thought, oh, maybe she does. Because I can hear her saying something like that. But I think maybe she has somewhat of a gift, anyway, but knows how to work it, knows how to use it, and has gone to school and so on.<\/p>\n

CR: She\u2019s the Reverend Dawn Navarro.<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah. Right. And that woman who is the, there was a gifted psychic who was above, who she mentions and that influenced her a lot, forgot the name, but the name I got from this little piece of paper that\u2019s in your pocket or in a shirt pocket —<\/p>\n

CR: Oh, Inspected By?<\/p>\n

EL: Inspected By.<\/p>\n

CR: No, really?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CR: And you just — the name just appealed to you?<\/p>\n

EL: It\u2019s a good name.<\/p>\n

CR: It is a good name. It\u2019s a great name.<\/p>\n

EL: Not Dawn, but whoever the\u2026<\/p>\n

CR: So Dawn\u2019s in Road Dogs<\/em>, and Cundo Rey —<\/p>\n

EL: Cundo\u2019s in LaBrava<\/em>.<\/p>\n

CR: — and Jack Foley, right?<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CR: And they somehow all get together.<\/p>\n

EL: Yeah. Cundo Rey, I saw his name in the International Page, I think it was, of Time Magazine<\/em>, a guy named Cundo Rey somewhere in a Latin country doing something, and I thought, \u201cGod, Cundo Rey, I love it. Gotta use that.” He comes out more in this one.<\/p>\n

CR: Hmm. Okay. I\u2019m looking forward to reading it and seeing the DVD of Killshot.<\/p>\n

[I rise to leave]<\/p>\n

EL: It\u2019s a good interview. Boy, it\u2019s . . . it\u2019s really, I had to think of things I\u2019ve never thought of before. It\u2019s a good interview. Very good.<\/p>\n

CR: Thank you.<\/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 3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":779,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"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\/3463"}],"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=3463"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3569,"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3463\/revisions\/3569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}