Westlake, Kalteis, Frankson, Morganti and me, plus a question for readers

Dietrich Kalteis and Martin J, Frankson are back with another Off the Cuff discussion, this time with Canadian novelist Charlotte Morganti, hashing out a matter dear to my heart: setting as character in crime fiction. Once again, Dietrich illustrates the discussion with one of my nourish photos (left), whose setting is right here in South Philadelphia.

Elsewhere, here's Donald Westlake, interviewed by Al Nussbaum in 1974, from the Westlake nonfiction collection The Getaway Car:

"I have felt for some time, with growing conviction. that there weren't any stories around to be written. I haven't been able to do a Richard Stark novel in a year and a half, the comedy caper is dead, story lines are drying up like African cattle.  Storylines reflect, refer to and attempt to deal with their period of history, and that's why they become old and obsolete and used up. Another reason is that the same story gets done and done and done and done, and suddenly one day nobody wants to read or hear that story again."

1974 marked the beginning of Westlake's 23-year hiatus from the Parker novels he wrote under the name Richard Stark. It was also the year of Jimmy the Kid, the worst of his comic caper Dortmunder books, Westlake's writing of which began to grow more sporadic around the same time. Instead, he concentrated on standalone novels for the next few years, though he eventually returned to both Parker and Dortmunder. So 1974 obviously marked a kind of crisis for Westlake. Now here's your question: Was Westlake's crisis merely personally, or was 1974 indeed a crisis year for crime fiction? Was his gloomy pronouncement accurate?

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

Block on Westlake and his (non) jokes (or, the comedy is finished)

Lawrence Block remembers his friend
Donald Weslake during a celebration
at Mysterious Bookshop. Photo by Peter
Rozovsky, your humble blog keeper.

In addition to enjoying Donald Westlake's novels, I always found his remarks on movies, popular culture, and other subjects stimulating. So I was pleased when I learned that the University of Chicago Press, the same folks who are rereleasing all the Parker novels Westlake wrote as Richard Stark, has put together a collection of Westlake's nonfiction.

Now I'm pleased to find that some key people behind the book, titles The Getaway Car, think similarly about what made Westlake so good. "Don didn't write jokes," his longtime friend Lawrence Block said Monday at a celebration of the book. "He found amusing ways to say things."  Levi Stahl, the volume's editor, emphasized the point with a little game in which he had members of the audience read the opening lines of several of the Parker novels (and one featuring Alan Grofield).

Here are a few I liked and remembered fondly:

"When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away."

and

"When the woman screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed."

and

"Grofield opened his right eye, and there was a girl climbing in the window. He closed that eye, opened the left, and she was still there."

Do you see the fun Westlake has with a common speech pattern in that last example?  Lawrence Block was right. Westlake didn't just say funny things, he said things funny.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

A first look at the new Donald Westlake non-fiction miscellany

I have long admired Donald Westlake's musings on his chosen genre of crime fiction, on memory, media, popular culture, and other subjects, but I had to glean the observations from interviews, articles, and citations in the work of others. Levi Stahl and the good people at the University of Chicago Press apparently agree that Westlake was an interesting guy, because they're bringing out a collection of  his non-fiction called The Getaway Car. Release is slated for October.

The book offers insight into Westlake's many alter egos (Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, et. al), a list of Westlake's favorite crime fiction, his reflections on his own work, letters, recollections, and May's famous tuna casserole recipe, among other things. Also included: an introduction by Stahl, a foreword by Westlake's friend Lawrence Block, and an epigraph from Westlake's widow, Abby: "No matter where he was headed, Don always drove like he was behind the wheel of the getaway car."

While I wait for a final copy of The Getaway Car, here's an old blog post that explains why I'm excited about the book. And here's a link to all Detectives Beyond Borders posts about Westlake.

==========

Donald Westlake, who died Dec. 31. 2008, at 75, was not just a prolific, creative, original and endlessly entertaining crime writer, he was also a thoughtful, intelligent observer of the world around him.

He once lamented the reduced distribution of foreign films in the U.S., calling the superb 1958 Italian heist movie Big Deal on Madonna Street a laboratory for comedy writers and mourning that future Americans might miss similar opportunities to absorb and learn from foreign influences.

He also noted mass media's tendency to telescope the past into a timeless present/past accessible to all. This meant, he remarked, that Americans could assess the accuracy of a movie scene set on a train even though most had never been on a train. I suspect he underestimated the number of Americans who had travelled by rail, but his point was valid, and it anticipated such phenomena as retro fashions, digital sampling/recycling of old pop songs, and the Beatles churning out new records long after they had broken up and begun to die off.

Those statements, one in an interview, the other in a preface to one of Westlake's books, if I recall correctly, rank among my favorite Westlake moments. They're right up there with Parker out of jail and walking across the George Washington Bridge in The Hunter or Joe Gores' D.K.A. gang meeting up with Dortmunder and his crew in Drowned Hopes or all of The Score or the stoic Parker finally losing patience with his lighthearted sidekick's antics and snapping, "Shut up, Grofield."

I always said Westlake differed from most authors in one respect: Most writers might come up with a wild story idea from time to time. Westlake turned his wild ideas into books. That's why even some of his less successful stories were always exciting and worth admiration for the man's gumption, imagination and industry.

Sarah Weinman's remarks include a library of Westlake links and a rolling list of Westlake tributes. Leap in. The man offers some terrific reading.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009