PARIS REVIEW 164, Winter 2002:
Grey Gowrie, as moderator of the "Como Conversazione" piece
in this issue, "Criminal Conversations" (with Evan Hunter,
John Mortimer, Elmore Leonard, P.D. James, Harriet Waugh,
Michael Didbin, Colin Dexter, and PR publisher Drue Heinz)
notes:
"We don't really believe genre fiction exists. It is
fiction."
A few other excerpts of potential RA interest: Evan Hunter: I
don't think [Raymond] Chandler was a very good writer nor do
I think [A.C.] Doyle was a very good writer.
(Given that I've yet to read a Hunter/McBain/Lombino/Marsten
that didn't have at least a touch of the stupid or flagrantly
artificial about it, though admittedly I've only read a dozen
or so works of varying lengths from him, I take this for what
it seems to be worth. Though I've just picked up the IF issue
with Hunter's "Malice in Wonderland"...since my previous
experience with the Quinn IF was with Paul Fairman's premiere
issue-- a minor Sturgeon and not much else you would
remember, and a notably goofy cover--I'm struck by just what
an impressive job it looks that Larry Shaw made of it in the
mid-'50s.)
(Shortly after:) Evan Hunter: I came to Chandler when I was
very young and loved him, of course, but I loved him for the
very things I learned not to like later on. Sentimentality
about the city, sexy women sliding toward you [wonder if he
meant to say sidling, or perhaps did and was
mistranscribed].--all this stuff would appeal to an
adolescent. Late on when I began to reread him to see what
had so captivated me, I really found a great many flaws in
the writing.
Elmore Leonard: I agree with Evan. I didn't learn anything at
all from Chandler, or from Dashiell Hammett.
(There's more, of course.)
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