RARA-AVIS: Re: Donald Westlake and the origin of Parker

From: jacquesdebierue (jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com)
Date: 06 Jan 2009

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    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Moore" <moorich@...> wrote:
    >
    > There is this Hammett reference in the TAD interview from 1988 when
    > DeAndrea asked him "What were your main influences?"
    ...

    And in the first two
    > books in particular, I was really coming off Hammett. He was the tree
    > I was climbing. the second one, Killing Time, I thought was a
    > failure. I thought it was overwrought, that it tried to hard.
    > _______________________________________________
    >
    > The first "coming off Hammett" novel--and the first novel published
    > under his own name--was The Mercenaries.

    Thanks, Richard. I may have misremembered who said what in the Leonard-Westlake interview. I'll reread it. Maybe it was Leonard who didn't like Hammett _either_. He insists that he's a son of Hemingway... except that (in my opinion, at least) he's considerably better than Hemingway!

    Best,

    mrt



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