RARA-AVIS: Early Westlake

From: E. Borgers ( webeurop@yahoo.fr)
Date: 16 Sep 2007


Few months ago, IIRC there was a thread discussing here about the early works of Westlake and his "erotic" novels were evoked -as well as his reluctance to admit he did it (and more than once) protected by some pseudos at the time.
   
  When in 2006 he was in France for a promotion tour, and during an interview he declared, after a question asking him if it's true that during the sixties he wrote erotic lit., Westlake declared (freely re-translated, as I was not there during the interview):
  "At my early beginning, indeed. I was part of this group of writers which had to write fast things that could be sold fast. Lawrence Block was among them also.
  So, in order to make a living I wrote indeed some of this kind of stuff. Different kind of books. And a lot of short stories, mainly for paperbacks.
  Yes, it was erotic lit., but not very hard, without the strong or too vulgar words: very soft !
  And I can tell you it was very difficult to write a 50,000 words novel without having the possibility to use the correct words to tell thingsā€¦"
   
  I stumbled recently again on this interview published in a French fanzine, and thought it may give some light about what Donald Westlake thinks to-day about these early works.
   
  E. Borgers
  POLAR NOIR
  http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
   
   

       
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