RARA-AVIS: RE: Hunter and Leonard

From: Dick Lochte ( dlochte@adelphia.net)
Date: 30 Mar 2003


Al wrote:

<Well, without inviting Hunter and Leonard to take lie detector tests,
<there's no way of knowing for sure. But I'm frankly astonished you think so.
<I can easily see how Chandler's style of writing would drive Leonard to
<distraction. After all, their writing is contrary in almost every possible
<way.

Wasn't Leonard's claim that he had learned nothing from either Chandler or Hammett? I don't see how anybody writing in the crime field today can say that and mean it. I'm thinking primarily of Hammett here. The Black Mask boys, with Hammett as the most visible, put a distinctive stamp on crime fiction that influenced everything in the genre that came after. I wonder if there was a follow up question: if Hammett wasn't an influence, then who? Perhaps like Robert Parker, Leonard is a Melville man.

Dick Lochte

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