Re: RARA-AVIS: Bad luck with Leonard

From: David Moran ( davidm@shakespeare-nyc.com)
Date: 23 Jan 2004


You and Mike and me three, Ed. I remember being very confused when Brit critics (e.g. Martin Amis) began to go totally ga-ga over Leonard in the 1980s and 1990s. Like you I've half-read a bunch of his novels, but only completed two (both one which were made into movies I'd liked, Jackie Brown/Rum Punch and Out of Sight). I liked them, but also thought there wasn't a lot of heart there and that he wasn't anything special.

Having said that, you might want to take a peek at some of his earlier genre stories, before he went all crazy hip bebop about everything. I really dig a lot of his western stories. The classic "3:10 to Yuma" has always been a short-story favorite of mine.

David Moran

Ed Poe wrote:

> Miker,
>
> You and I must be the only two guys on the planet who
> don't get Elmore Leonard. I have an entire shelf in
> my library devoted to his books, all of which are half
> read. While I recognize his genius with dialogue,
> everything else about his work leaves me cold. I even
> picked up GLITZ for the second time (1985, regarded as
> his breakout novel) a few months ago and quit about a
> third of the way through it.
>
> Different strokes.
>
> --Ed

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