In a message dated 3/30/2003 6:56:42 AM Mountain Standard
Time,
allanguthrie@ukonline.co.uk writes: In 1977 Newgate
Callendar makes the now obvious comparison when reviewing
"Unknown Man No. 89":
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/08/home/leonard-unknown.html"The
real influence on Leonard is George V. Higgins, whose The
Friends of Eddie Coyle came out about five years ago and
marked a breakthrough into the kind of language previously
encountered only in paperback books with green covers...." In
the Paris Review, Leonard appears to agree with the above
analysis of his work, and to take it a step further: "I
consider George Higgins's The Friends of Eddie Coyle the best
crime book ever written. ... George Higgins set me free in
the early seventies. The Friends of Eddie Coyle gave me the
license to use the appropriate kind of language the way
George very freely used obscenities. His style also showed me
how to get into what was going on immediately, without
setting up scenes, without setting up dialogue about what was
going on, without telling where they were immediately. I
learned all that from George. You never know who can inspire
you in some way, give you exactly the sound you're looking
for. That's all voice is; what interests you is what side you
want to take." Later in the interview, after this
acknowledgment to Higgins, Leonard makes his now-infamous
statement (at least on this list) that he "didn't learn
anything at all from Chandler, or from Dashiell Hamm! ett."
He does add, however, that Chandler and Hammett began a genre
of their own, the private eye. Manuel RamosBROWN-ON-BROWN
(2003)www.manuelramos.com
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