I thought some of you here might be interested in the "Paris Review" interview with James Ellroy from 2009.
It covers a lot of territory some biography, some literary biography, and a lot of personal opinion. If you're an Ellroy fan, it is probably worth a read:
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5948/the-art-of-fiction-no-201-james-ellroy
I hope you find something of value in it.
Jack Bludis
"Shadow of the Dahlia," a Shamus finalist novel at Amazon.com
Kindle for now. Soon out in a new trade-paper edition.
--- On Thu, 9/23/10, rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com <rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> From: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com <rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: RARA-AVIS: Digest Number 2829
> To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 6:35 AM
> There are 10 messages in this issue.
>
> Topics in this digest:
>
> 1. Where the Boys Are Not
> From: Frederick Zackel
>
> 2a. Tempted by Trouble by Eric Jerome Dickey
> From: davezeltserman
> 2b. Re: Tempted by Trouble by Eric Jerome Dickey
>
> From: Ron Clinton
>
> 3a. Re: Boothe, not Keach.
> From: Kevin Burton Smith
> 3b. Re: Boothe, not Keach.
> From: Mark Sullivan
>
> 4a. Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> From: Kevin Burton Smith
> 4b. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> From: Karin Montin
> 4c. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> From: Mark Sullivan
> 4d. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> From: Karin Montin
> 4e. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> From: Brian Thornton
>
>
> Messages
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 1. Where the Boys Are Not
> Posted by: "Frederick Zackel" fzackel@wcnet.org
>
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:07 am ((PDT))
>
> Where the Boys Are Not
>
> It's no secret that lots of women work in publishing. But
> just how many more
> women work in publishing than men? In PW's recent Salary
> Survey (Aug. 2) one
> statistic stuck out: 85% of employees with less than three
> years of
> experience in the industry are women.
>
> This week's Publishers Weekly
>
> Offered without comment by
>
> Fred Zackel
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (1)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 2a. Tempted by Trouble by Eric Jerome Dickey
> Posted by: "davezeltserman" Dave.Zeltserman@gmail.com
> davezeltserman
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 2:14 pm ((PDT))
>
> You'd never guess this is an excellent crime noir novel
> from it's title or cover or even the book's description, but
> it is. Written in first person, Dmytryk Knight, at one time
> a white collar professional before being reduced to blue
> collar factory worker, finds himself out of work, and is
> pushed into robbing banks by his wife. When his wife leaves
> him, the bank robberies continue with one going horribly
> wrong before leading up to the big score. The writing
> reminds me of a mix of early Lawrence Block and recent
> Walter Mosley, and is also somewhat reminiscent of Reservoir
> Dogs as the book stays true to it's noir vision throughout.
> Highly recommended, especially if you like desperate bank
> robbery books.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (2)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 2b. Re: Tempted by Trouble by Eric Jerome Dickey
> Posted by: "Ron Clinton" clinton65@comcast.net
> ronclinton65
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 3:46 pm ((PDT))
>
> My list of new books that sound terrific by authors I
> haven't read continues
> to grow (having just read John Rector's THE COLD
> KISS)...thanks, Dave. I'll
> add TEMPTED to my Wish List, along with GAVELSTON by Nic
> Pizzolatto and AN
> ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINAL by Michael Van Rooy.
>
> On a related note, THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF BLACK MASK
> STORIES is now on
> the shelves, all 1136 pages of pulpish goodness, as is THE
> BEST AMERICAN
> NOIR OF THE CENTURY, ed. by Penzler and Ellroy. The
> former is a must-buy
> for me, the latter...well, it'll probably have to wait a
> while.
>
> Ron C.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com]
> On
> > Behalf Of davezeltserman
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 2:14 PM
> > To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: RARA-AVIS: Tempted by Trouble by Eric Jerome
> Dickey
> >
> > You'd never guess this is an excellent crime noir
> novel from it's title or
> cover or
> > even the book's description, but it is. Written in
> first person, Dmytryk
> Knight, at one
> > time a white collar professional before being reduced
> to blue collar
> factory worker,
> > finds himself out of work, and is pushed into robbing
> banks by his wife.
> When his
> > wife leaves him, the bank robberies continue with one
> going horribly wrong
> before
> > leading up to the big score. The writing reminds me of
> a mix of early
> Lawrence
> > Block and recent Walter Mosley, and is also somewhat
> reminiscent of
> Reservoir
> > Dogs as the book stays true to it's noir vision
> throughout. Highly
> recommended,
> > especially if you like desperate bank robbery books.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (2)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 3a. Re: Boothe, not Keach.
> Posted by: "Kevin Burton Smith" kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com
> thrillingdetective
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 2:51 pm ((PDT))
>
> James wrote:
>
> > Keach? Are you certain you aren't thinking of the
> Powers Boothe series?
>
> AAAARRRGGHHH!!!! Oh, gawd, yes. I apologize. Yes, I meant
> Powers Boothe. With Keach in the role, the Marlowe series
> would have been just that much worse.
>
> Serves me right for replying before my morning coffee.
>
> But speaking of lousy adaptations, did anyone who ever read
> Spillane ever really buy Keach as Hammer?
>
> and Patrick wrote:
>
> > I'm pretty much convinced that a subversion of all of
> Chandler's themes and ideals was in fact Altman's conscious
> intention.
>
> Well, yeah. He never made any bones about it -- that's
> exactly what he planned. I'm sure Jim or someone can give
> you the exact quote. At least Altman displayed an
> understanding and awareness of -- and arguably, respect for
> -- Chandler, even if his intention was to subvert him.
>
> Which is very different from just cherry picking the parts
> you want to use, and completely ignoring the rest. Or
> pretending it wasn't there in the first place.
>
> Which is what some of those who have adapted Chandler
> seemed to have done. They completely missed the point,
> reducing Marlowe to a generic, formless, malleable private
> eye who can be forced to fit the mold of their own idea
> ideas. Thus we get Marlowe as The Falcon, as Mike Shayne, as
> a glib, horny man about town, as a doofus staring straight
> at the camera who looks more like a constipated insurance
> salesman than a private eye, as an aging American ex-pat
> waiting for Viagara to be invented in a swinging London also
> well past its prime, and as a wisenheimer pre-Rockford.
>
> And that's just in the films. The TV shows and radio show
> were generally even worse.
>
> The bruised romantic; the skeptical, cynical idealist; the
> knight in a game no longer meant for knights, the inherent
> slow burn sadness of the novels -- not to mention the poetry
> of Chandler's prose -- that Marlowe's been given short
> shrift in almost all the adaptations. Anyone who looks at
> Marlowe and just sees a trenchcoat, a fedora and a gun is
> missing the point.
>
> I'm not saying Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE is the best
> Marlowe adaptation out there, but I do wonder about the
> vitriol it inspires among those who give the other
> travesties a free pass. Particularly when you consider how
> misguided and just plain awful so many of them have been.
>
> Is it just that THE LONG GOODBYE and THE BIG SLEEP are the
> only Chandler flicks they've seen?
>
>
> Kevin Burton Smith
> Editor/Founder
> The Thrilling Detective Web Site
> "Wasting your time on the web since 1998."
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (2)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 3b. Re: Boothe, not Keach.
> Posted by: "Mark Sullivan" DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net
> dj.anonyme
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 4:51 pm ((PDT))
>
>
> Kevin wrote:
> "Well, yeah. He never made any bones about it -- that's
> exactly what he planned. I'm sure Jim or someone can give
> you the exact quote. At least Altman displayed an
> understanding and awareness of -- and arguably, respect for
> -- Chandler, even if his intention was to subvert him."
> I'll be that someone that fans the flame.
> Here's what Altman said:
> "The research material we used primarily was Raymond
> Chandler Speaking, a series of letters, and I made everybody
> that worked on the picture read that thoroughly. I took the
> two main characters, both Philip Marlowe and Roger Wade, and
> I took character traits of Chandler and I applied them to
> both, and I made one the voice and the other the conscience.
> His plots are so complicated and so full of holes that the
> way he plugged the holes was to further complicate them. But
> he used this thread to hang about sixty thumbnail essays on,
> so the real interest in Raymond Chandler, to me, were those
> essays. We tightened the plot up; I dropped half the
> characters probably; then I used that line to hang a bunch
> of film essays on. They weren't actually lifted from Raymond
> Chandler so much as they were projections of him, because if
> Raymond Chandler were alive in 1972 he wouldn't see things
> the way he did in 1950 because he would himself have been
> that much older. I've kept the story in 1952, but set it in
> 1972. The goodbye is people going, not in separate
> directions, but going in the same direction at a different
> pace."
> And here's what scriptwriter Leigh Brackett said:
> "In its first release, the film was greeted, by some
> critics, with the tone of outrage generally reserved for
> those who tamper with the Bible. This seems just a bit silly
> to me. I'm an old Chandler fan from way back, probably
> farther back than a lot of the critics. He was a powerful
> influence on my own work in those years. But I don't feel
> that any sacrilege was being committed. And I doubt that
> Chandler himself would have regarded every aspect of his
> work as Holy Writ.
>
> "I think he might even have liked Altman's version of The
> Long Goodbye."
> Mark
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (2)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 4a. Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> Posted by: "Kevin Burton Smith" kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com
> thrillingdetective
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:18 pm ((PDT))
>
> It's not been a good month. I just heard from Peter
> Sellers, the Canadian crime writer and editor, that our good
> friend Kerry Schooley is dead, apparently of a heart
> attack.
>
> I'll try to find out more as soon as I can, but I'm not at
> home right now. And not very good company, I'm afraid.
>
> Kerry was of the brightest lights of this list, an
> intelligent and well-read man whose opinions carried not
> just weight but grace and wit and generosity of spirit --
> things we're too often too of. He was also, under the pen
> name of John Swan, one of the best noir writers and editors
> in Canada, sadly under-appreciated. He actually bought my
> first published fiction. But more than that, he was a good
> friend. A very good friend.
>
> Somehow we lost touch over the last few years, and now
> we'll never be able to catch up. Fuck. I'm really hurting.
>
> Crank up the Otis Redding, boys. We're just lost one of the
> good ones.
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (5)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 4b. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> Posted by: "Karin Montin" kmontin@videotron.ca
> jckm2
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:31 pm ((PDT))
>
> That is a shock. Kerry had been writing less
> frequently in the past
> couple of years, but his posts were always thoughtful and
> literate --
> and quite often deliberately provocative. I met him at the
> Toronto
> Bouchercon at the same time I met Kevin and a bunch of
> other Rara
> Avians. I can't count him as a friend, but I will
> definitely miss his
> contributions; in fact, I had been missing them already.
>
> Karin
>
> On 22/09/2010 9:18 PM, Kevin Burton Smith wrote:
> > It's not been a good month. I just heard from Peter
> Sellers, the Canadian crime writer and editor, that our good
> friend Kerry Schooley is dead, apparently of a heart
> attack.
> >
> > I'll try to find out more as soon as I can, but I'm
> not at home right now. And not very good company, I'm
> afraid.
> >
> > Kerry was of the brightest lights of this list, an
> intelligent and well-read man whose opinions carried not
> just weight but grace and wit and generosity of spirit --
> things we're too often too of. He was also, under the pen
> name of John Swan, one of the best noir writers and editors
> in Canada, sadly under-appreciated. He actually bought my
> first published fiction. But more than that, he was a good
> friend. A very good friend.
> >
> > Somehow we lost touch over the last few years, and now
> we'll never be able to catch up. Fuck. I'm really hurting.
> >
> > Crank up the Otis Redding, boys. We're just lost one
> of the good ones.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (5)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 4c. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> Posted by: "Mark Sullivan" DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net
> dj.anonyme
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:50 pm ((PDT))
>
>
> Oh, man, that really sucks. We spent a great day
> together trawling Maryland used bookstores after the DC
> Bouchercon years ago, Kerry, Kevin and I. Kerry will
> be missed.
> Mark
>
>
> > To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> > From: kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com
> > Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:18:45 -0700
> > Subject: RARA-AVIS: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> >
> > It's not been a good month. I just heard from Peter
> Sellers, the Canadian crime writer and editor, that our good
> friend Kerry Schooley is dead, apparently of a heart
> attack.
> >
> > I'll try to find out more as soon as I can, but I'm
> not at home right now. And not very good company, I'm
> afraid.
> >
> > Kerry was of the brightest lights of this list, an
> intelligent and well-read man whose opinions carried not
> just weight but grace and wit and generosity of spirit --
> things we're too often too of. He was also, under the pen
> name of John Swan, one of the best noir writers and editors
> in Canada, sadly under-appreciated. He actually bought my
> first published fiction. But more than that, he was a good
> friend. A very good friend.
> >
> > Somehow we lost touch over the last few years, and now
> we'll never be able to catch up. Fuck. I'm really hurting.
> >
> > Crank up the Otis Redding, boys. We're just lost one
> of the good ones.
> >
> > Kevin
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (5)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 4d. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> Posted by: "Karin Montin" kmontin@videotron.ca
> jckm2
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:53 pm ((PDT))
>
> I found this page that mentions some of Kerry's
> other interests, and
> gives a link to him performing Joe Hill: <*http://tinyurl.com/28ox5cb*>.
>
> Karin
>
> On 22/09/2010 9:31 PM, Karin Montin wrote:
> > That is a shock. Kerry had been writing
> less frequently in the past
> > couple of years, but his posts were always thoughtful
> and literate --
> > and quite often deliberately provocative. I met him at
> the Toronto
> > Bouchercon at the same time I met Kevin and a bunch of
> other Rara
> > Avians. I can't count him as a friend, but I will
> definitely miss his
> > contributions; in fact, I had been missing them
> already.
> >
> > Karin
> >
> > On 22/09/2010 9:18 PM, Kevin Burton Smith wrote:
> >> It's not been a good month. I just heard from
> Peter Sellers, the Canadian crime writer and editor, that
> our good friend Kerry Schooley is dead, apparently of a
> heart attack.
> >>
> >> I'll try to find out more as soon as I can, but
> I'm not at home right now. And not very good company, I'm
> afraid.
> >>
> >> Kerry was of the brightest lights of this list, an
> intelligent and well-read man whose opinions carried not
> just weight but grace and wit and generosity of spirit --
> things we're too often too of. He was also, under the pen
> name of John Swan, one of the best noir writers and editors
> in Canada, sadly under-appreciated. He actually bought my
> first published fiction. But more than that, he was a good
> friend. A very good friend.
> >>
> >> Somehow we lost touch over the last few years, and
> now we'll never be able to catch up. Fuck. I'm really
> hurting.
> >>
> >> Crank up the Otis Redding, boys. We're just lost
> one of the good ones.
> >>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (5)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 4e. Re: Kerry Schooley, R.I.P.
> Posted by: "Brian Thornton" bthorntonwriter@gmail.com
> briannthorntonn
> Date: Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:09 pm ((PDT))
>
> DAMNDAMNDAMN.
>
> Met Kerry once in person, at the Toronto B'con noir fiction
> panel. What a
> great guy. Enjoyed his contributions to the list for
> the past decade.
>
> He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look
> upon his like again.
>
> Brian
>
> On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Kevin Burton Smith <
> kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > It's not been a good month. I just heard from Peter
> Sellers, the Canadian
> > crime writer and editor, that our good friend Kerry
> Schooley is dead,
> > apparently of a heart attack.
> >
> > I'll try to find out more as soon as I can, but I'm
> not at home right now.
> > And not very good company, I'm afraid.
> >
> > Kerry was of the brightest lights of this list, an
> intelligent and
> > well-read man whose opinions carried not just weight
> but grace and wit and
> > generosity of spirit -- things we're too often too of.
> He was also, under
> > the pen name of John Swan, one of the best noir
> writers and editors in
> > Canada, sadly under-appreciated. He actually bought my
> first published
> > fiction. But more than that, he was a good friend. A
> very good friend.
> >
> > Somehow we lost touch over the last few years, and now
> we'll never be able
> > to catch up. Fuck. I'm really hurting.
> >
> > Crank up the Otis Redding, boys. We're just lost one
> of the good ones.
> >
> > Kevin
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (5)
>
>
>
> RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
> rara-avis-l-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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