Re: RARA-AVIS: Sensitive detectives


Ron Clinton (r-and-jclinton@email.msn.com)
Sat, 27 Nov 1999 11:35:08 -0800


> I missed a lot of discussion of Vachss, but he was one of the first new
wave
> HB writers I read, and his work came as a real shock to the system, but,
> yes, after the shock wears off, he is a bit of a one trick pony(talking
> Burke here) I'm not saying the issues he raises aren't important, but
> probably the books just end up being issue led (with the "Doc Savage"
stuff
> chucked in

Vachss would actually probably agree with you. I saw him, along with Joe Lansdale, at Seattle's NW Bookfest and he said nearly the same thing, though in different words, of course. He said he does not consider himself a
"writer" but rather a "reporter" of what's going on with the issues he's concerned with. He merely reports what he sees, he says - he doesn't make it up. He said his life revolves around one issue - the protection of children - and that's what his gig is, that's what he writes about. He
"doesn't know anything else" and "wouldn't know how to write about it." Though the words in quotes are as close to what he said as I can recall, the rest has been paraphrased. But I think it's pretty clear he would agree with you on the above point.

Though I think - as Lansdale correctly chimed in - Vachss is being overly modest.

Ron Clinton

--
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sat 27 Nov 1999 - 14:35:32 EST