I appreciate hearing the comments on Willeford. As some on
this list
know, I am writing an entry on Willeford for the Dictionary
of Literary
Biography. I know others on this list are also involved in
the project.
I welcome additional comments or thoughts, posted directly
to me if you
prefer at dlevin@directimpact.com
I know only a few of Leonard's works, and so I cannot comment
fully on
the comparison. The two men knew one another and had
some
correspondence. My sense was that Leonard came up through the
ranks of
genre writers (westerns first, then crime novels). Willeford
had what
one might call high literary ambitions and frequently raised
questions
about art--notice, for instance, the extent to which his
novels contain
portraits of artists. We think of him along the lines of
Leonard
because of his Moseley books, but he seems a somewhat
different writer
in his other, non-genre works.
You can bet I have more to say on Willeford but I'll stop
here--except
for one more comment. We've had a few posts that have, I
think, too
strongly equated authors with their works. No doubt the
writer is in
his or her works, but violence in the imagination does not
necessarily
make for a violent or unagreeable person. In the end, I guess
I prefer
the focus on the works--that's what we care about, though the
lives
sometimes no doubt deepen the readings of the fiction.
Doug Levin
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