Hey, fellow Rara-Avians--
Coming out of lurkdom to respond to a few questions...
Duane Spurlock writes:
> I'm still not sure how a reviewer can describe a
novel that
> "present[s] this world as an unforgiving,
blood-soaked wasteland" as a
> "bittersweet slice of noir." Is that a back-handed
compliment? For
> some reason, "bittersweet slice of noir" brings to
mind some notion of
> a "cozy noir" novel -- and THE WHEEL MAN certainly
doesn't strike me
> as that sort of novel (whatever the heck that might
be).
I certainly didn't take it as a back-handed compliment,
Duane. I think Anderson was having a little sport with the
first description
("unforgiving, blood-soaked wasteland") but he goes on to
note there is some humor and humanity along with the mayhem.
Which absolutely thrilled me, because that's what I was going
for.
Bill Crider writes:
> THE WHEELMAN is good reading, for sure. I posted a
review on my blog a
> while back. If by some bizarre quirk of fate you
missed it, it's here:
> http://tinyurl.com/8fs2s.
I'm a little late, but check your PayPal account for that
$50, Bill.
Mark writes:
> Duane Spurlock noted today's Washington Post review
of Duane
> Swierczynski's THE WHEEL MAN. Odd that the reviewer,
Patrick Anderson,
> called it Duane's first novel, which overlooks his
previous novel,
> Secret Dead Man (unless they were published out of
sequence). Of
> course, SDM was not listed as a previous work or
included in the
> author's bio of Wheel Man, either.
Mark, that was the *other* Duane Swierczynski...
I'm kidding, of course. You're absolutely right. SECRET DEAD
MEN was my first novel. But you can't blame the reviewers;
the press release for THE WHEELMAN calls it my crime fiction
debut, and I only saw it long after it had been sent
out.
I'm actually of two minds of this. WHEELMAN, while undeniably
a second novel, is my first straight-away crime thriller.
(SDM was a hybrid of mystery, horror and sci-fi.) And since
they were written about six years apart, WHEELMAN did *feel*
like a first novel. As Al Guthrie has said before about his
own work, I feel like I had the opportunity to write two
first novels.
That said, I'm still intensely proud of SDM, and would like
to think that people who enjoy novel would dig the
other.
(Speaking of Al, I think SDM would have still been
languishing on my hard drive if he hadn't asked to see it. So
we can all blame him.)
> By the way, Duane, was that tidbit in the bio true,
about a receipt for
> your non-fiction book on bank jobs being found in a
getaway car? How
> did you find out? And was your book good enough that
the crook got
> away?
Absolutely. Here's a clip about his sentencing last year: http://tinyurl.com/b6fnq
I found out a few weeks after the fact, when a friend
e-mailed me the Associated Press clip with the subject line,
"Did you see this!?" I thought it was a joke until I dig some
Lexis-Nexis searching, and found out that it was true.
As for the book being a good instruction manual, let's put it
this way: Buchanan had robbed something like 30 banks before
he was caught. The day before he was caught, he bought my
book, thereby ending his streak. At the very least, I think
THIS HERE'S A STICK-UP served as a jinx...
Cheers--
Duane Swierczynski
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 01 Nov 2005 EST