#22: The greatest passage in crime fiction, and other clickbait
Talking Elmore Leonard, and a couple of announcements
Elmore Leonard’s first crime novel, THE BIG BOUNCE, was published in 1969 by Gold Medal Books—perhaps the greatest paperback crime fiction imprint ever. It wasn’t his first novel, however, because Leonard had published for more than 15 years prior, amassing five novels and more than 30 short stories, all Westerns.
Leonard’s shift to crime came as story markets changed; the Western was fading in popularity, and writing crime fiction offered Leonard—always an opportunist—a growing market. He would go on to write two more Westerns before shifting to crime completely with 1974’s MR. MAJESTYK.
(Now if we’re honest—and we’re all friends, so why wouldn’t we?—Leonard never completely left the Western behind. He explored Western archetypes and motifs in a variety of books, most notably with the character of Raylan Givens—first seen in the novel novel PRONTO and best known in the TV series JUSTIFIED—and writing the scripts for a pair of Western TV-movies in the 1980s that are better left undiscussed.)
By the time he published SWAG in 1976, Leonard had all but perfected the style that would serve him throughout the remainder of his career. He specialized in sharply-realized characters, centered in plots that felt both organic and loosely constructed, spouting off the smartest, truest dialogue ever crafted.
(No one read Leonard for plots; you read him to hang out with a motley crew of characters in varying degrees of honesty for the first two-thirds of the book, before they started scamming and killing one another for a bag of money in the book’s final third.)
But maybe Leonard’s greatest accomplishment as a writer was his peerless use of a third-person omniscient narrator. Through this, Leonard maintained a constantly roving eye throughout his novels, forever feeding his audience fresh insight and observations on action and characters. The beauty of how he did it was to make it the worlds as casual and off-handed as possible—all in an effort, he said, to be as invisible.
He said:
“I started to realize that the way to describe anywhere, anywhere, was to do it from someone’s point of view . . . and leave me out of it.”
(Leonard’s famous “Ten Rules for Good Writing” is summed up as “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”)
Alright, back to SWAG: About two men—used car salesman Frank Ryan and car thief Ernest “Stick” Stickley, Jr.—who opt to embark on a new criminal career, the book chronicles their newfound lives and the creation of the ten golden rules for armed robbery:
Always be polite on the job and say please and thank you.
Never say more than necessary. Less is more.
Never call your partner by name-unless you use a made-up name.
Never look suspicious or like a bum and dress well.
Never use your own car.
Never count the take in the car.
Never flash money in a bar or with women.
Never go back to an old bar or hangout once you have moved up.
Never tell anyone your business and never tell a junkie even your name.
Never associate with people known to be in crime.
(Leonard was a sucker for a list of rules, it seems.)
As Frank and Stick get more successful, they become more daring, and start to ignore the rules. In what could be the plot summary for most Leonard novels, shit goes awry.
But no, what I dragged you all the way here for is really this, what might be my favorite passage in all of crime fiction, taken from the first third of the book:
Goddamn but look how beautifully efficient that is. You get so much information about Frank, a little about Stick, some casual drinking, and then a liquor store holdup. The tiny details—Stick’s wardrobe, Frank’s belief “everything was working” because of his commission—are perfect. In roughly one hundred words, he tells you more than most could have said in pages.
So that’s my favorite passage from crime fiction. Please feel free to jump into the comments and share the ones you love.
SHAMELESS SHILLING
I have a short story coming out Monday, September 30, in FRIEND OF THE DEVIL: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD. Edited by Josh Pachter, who’s become a maestro in organizing these inspired-by anthologies, this one is as top-loaded with talented writers as you could hope for, including James L’Etoile, Bruce Robert Coffin, Twist Phelan, David Avallone, and Faye Snowden.
My story is “Shakedown Street, has a little bit of a lot, with digressions into boxing, chess, and gentrification, a barfly Greek chorus named Ski, a crime boss named Swerve for a very specific reason, and, most of all, Beau and Leigh—a pair of lost souls looking for second chances. It’s funnier than almost anything I’ve ever written, certainly more romantic, and also has some scenes of gnarly violence.
Hope you’ll dig it.
(Fun trivia: This is the second book with this title I’ve been a part of; the fourth Henry Malone novel was also called FRIEND OF THE DEVIL.)
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
I’m excited to announce I’ve signed with agent extraordinaire Michelle Richter as a new client of Fuse Literary. Michelle is a rockstar with a client list that includes powerhouse writers such as Kellye Garrett (MISSING WHITE WOMAN), E.A. Aymar (NO HOME FOR KILLERS), Tara Laskowski (THE MOTHER NEXT DOOR), and Alan Orloff (SANCTUARY MOTEL).
I’m really looking forward to working with Michelle and the team at Fuse on the next phase of my storytelling journey. I hope y’all keep coming along for the ride.
That’s all we’ve got for now. Thanks for coming. See you next time, and hey, let’s be careful out there.
Just finished Swag recently and of course it made me want to write like Leonard. But I'm sticking to copying Donald Westlake.
"Brian had all that day to figure out what was going on, and yet he didn't." What's So Funny?
Yesterday, I stumbled on this passage from John Guzlowski's Murdertown, and it really kicked me hard... a bit more wordy than Elmore, dry as it comes:
A young kid passed by then, lugging a big paper shopping bag from the A&P supermarket. At least here was one good kid doing what he was supposed to be doing. Helping his mom and dad. Doing the shopping for the family. Dragging a heavy bag down from the supermarket on Division Street. Hank nodded his head.
And then another kid ran up to the kid with the shopping bag. The second kid had something in his hand. A dark smudge of something. A toy revolver? A little-bitty gun, maybe a .22. A toy? The second kid pressed it quick against the back of the first kid’s head and pulled the trigger. Maybe twenty feet away, but Hank could hear it plain as if the trigger was pulled in the car he and Marvin were sitting in. Pop! and the kid with the shopping bag dropped without a scream, and the other kid, the kid with the gun, grabbed the shopping bag and turned into a gangway between the two buildings, and he was gone.