Michael Connelly is in town today and tomorrow for signings,
and a friend and I went up to today's event. The store was
crowded, so we got out of the way and stood talking. When we
looked around to see where the line would be, ten people had
moved in behind us and we were at the head.
Connelly spoke for a few minutes first, then took a few
questions. He was asked what writers he read, and he
mentioned Mr. Pelecanos along with Dennis Lehane and James
Lee Burke, but said he didn't read many American mystery
writers, they were too close to his own work, and he rattled
off the names of many of the British writers mentioned here.
People were interested in that, but they didn't seem as
interested when he stressed how important Chandler was too
him, and that he reread Chandler's work every now and then.
Connelly also said that after the book tour he was going to
take some time (he already has his next book written) and
reread all of Ross Macdonald's books in order. That's a big
job.
I couldn't think of much to say when he signed my books, but
did give him my card, told him about the list, and dropped
Mr. Pelecanos' and Mr. Lankford's names. He said he knew
about it, and wasn't on it but got some of the mail, so maybe
someone's forwarding him some messages. I told him he had a
lot of fans here.
His plan about rereading Macdonald twigged me to something
I'd forgotten: a plan to try rereading all of Hammett's work
in chronological order. With NIGHTMARE TOWN and all the other
books and collections I don't think I'm missing too much of
his fiction, and I thought going through it all but this time
in the order it was written could be fun. Has anyone ever
tried this? Now that so many writers work in series, this is
a pretty standard way to go, but it's different when tackling
a writer who wrote a lot before paperbacks took over.
By the way, it looks like www.miskatonic.org was unreachable
for about five days, after a name server upgrade. Thanks to
Ms. Esposito-Shea for reporting it. It's working now, so the
archives are there again.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 26 Feb 2001 EST