I was at a Pelecanos' event this week. Very interesting! He
said that the King Suckerman movie wasn't being held up by
Sean "Puffy" Combs problems, as he was a producer in name
only. The problem was with the script. He figured the jacket
copy, included Combs, because he is more famous than
Pelelecanos. But he sems to have reached a critical mass,
that generates a lot of publicity, himself. The Jan 3(?)rd,
article in Publishers Weekly regarding Pelecanos was also
intersting. It should be avalilable on their web site. He
attributes a lot of the media he's getting, now, to
journalist here, reading forign publications. He says that
when he has gone abroad, he has gotten a lot more attention
than here, that results in publications thinking they are
missing out on somthing and should cover him, also.
He stated that he is sticking to DC as a location and that he
has tried to chronicle it through the century. He writes
about a Washington, that others don't, the other side of the
tracks, the underbelly. Nothing about the Federal Government.
he says his next book is going to deal with race, as though
his earlier books have only touched on it. I'll be interested
to see what that translates into
His current book, Shame the Devil, deals with the aftermath
of violent crime. His writes about a diferent kind of hard
boiled character that is also very sensitive, than discussed
before in the sensitive PI thread. One of teh scenes he read,
dealt with the thoughts and feelings of someone who had lost
his son to violence. He said that he thought that hard boiled
writing had to be true to deep feelings, when asked what that
meant and if he reaearched it by interviewing victims, he
said he went into himself and imagined what he would feel if
somthing like that happened to him.
Another book, that I've enjoyed lately is Rick Riorden's The
Last King of Texas. It's much closer to hard boiled than his
earlier PBOs. It's an iteresting transition to hardcover.
This book deals more with race and class and seems more
serious than his earlier ones. His first two books, between
them won the Shamus, Edgar and Anthony awards, though. The
character, Robert Johnson could also generate some more
discussion on the hardboiled pets thread. In another
interesting twist, his character, a PI, has taken a temporary
job as a Medival Literature profesor. Riorden, himself has a
truly frightening day job, he teaches middle school english.
I imagine that could lead one, to write books with a high
body count.
Don Cannon
<
dcannon1@ix.netcom.com>
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