Westlake has always been a favorite of mine and I've enjoyed his
light-hearted novels almost as much as his grittier fare. As I've
recounted here before in relation to other writers, Michele Slung
hosted a series of talks with mystery writers at the Smithsonian
Institute in 1981-82 and Westlake was one of those participating.
This was before mystery writers, other than a rare few, enjoyed much
public recognition and the prestige of the Smithsonian added to the honor.
Unlike most of the other participants who spoke informally, Westlake
composed a well-organized speech that declared the private eye novel
was dead. While it had its funny moments, Westlake was not joking
when he said the PI novel had been done to death and it was time to
move on. He put the needle to many of the leading PI writers
beginning with Ross Macdonald, the then leading practioner. He later
converted the talk into an article for the much lamented publication
The Armchair Detective and it caused a good bit of controversy at the
time.
Naturally, I can't find the issue when I looked for it tonight. But I
did find an excellent Westlake interview conducted by the late William
DeAndrea (with help from Richard Myers in the Fall 1988 issue of The
Armchair Detective. In it he gives the origins of Parker, which owes
its life as a series to the poor choice by an editor at Gold Medal and
an inspired editor at Pocket Books who loved Chester Himes' Harlem series.
Westlake: Of course, the first book wasn't going to be part of a
series. Nothing happened the way I anticipated it was going to happen
with that book. I was doing one a year in hardcover from Random
House, and I thought, okay, time to have another name, and I'd been
reading all these Gold Medal books--which is where Peter Rabe came
from--so I wrote this book to be a Gold medal paperback original
novel. Certainly not a series. In fact, Parker got caught at the
end. The editor at Gold Medal turned it down, and I was confused.
Then it was sent to Pocket Books. There was an editor at Pocket Books
named Bucklyn Moon. Buck Moon.
Meyers: Great name.
Westlake: Yeah. He was a very interesting guy. He was a white guy
whose three great interests were mystery--private eye--crime novels,
poetry, and black writing. He edited anthologies of black poets, for
instance; he was the American champion of Chester Himes--Gravedigger
Jones, Coffin Ed Johnson. These things all came together in him. At
that time, I was represented by Scott Meredith, God help me. Buck
called Scott, and then he called me, and said, "Is there any way for
you to let Parker get away at the end of the book, and give me three a
year?" I said, "I think so."
Skipping forward in the interview, Westlake continued.
Westlake: But , at the time, a $3000 advance was very good. So in
'61, being told that for my second name I would do three books a year,
which would be no problem, that would be $9,000 already. On the first
of January, I know I'm going to make at least $9,000 this year--that's
terrific. And I'd really had to distort the book to have the guy
caught in the end, anyway, so I just had him deal with those cops, you
know? Parker unchained.
DeAndrea: You once said to me, "You don't know what it's like to have
a pen name who's doing better than you are" Is that really true?
Westlake: Stark did better than Westlake for his last few years. The
last Stark was published in '73, and maybe even a little farther,
Stark did better than Westlake in terms of sales, income, and movie
sales, and certain in terms of fan letters. This is knowledge that I
resist but its true...
So tonight I raise my glass in salute to both Donald Westlake and an
editor named Bucklyn Moon.
Richard Moore
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, sonny <sforstater@...> wrote:
>
> as you know, the hunter (aka point blank and payback) was the first
parker book written/published.
>
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