Setting
aside a newly lit True, he disappears briefly into an adjoining room and
returns with a brown cardboard box stamped with the blue "Kinko's" logo,
carrying it as gingerly as a jeweler toting a tray of gems. Placing the
container carefully on a bluejeaned knee, he shuffles through the contents
until he finds the page he's looking for. Raising it to eye level, he stares
briefly at it through round-lensed spectacles. Then, in a sonorous voice
that many a morning deejay would envy, he begins reading from Chapter 10
of the manuscript of his new book, "Riding the Rap," due out in June from
Delacorte Press.
This Reverend Dawn Navarro was a cute girl ... say around thirty, her dark hair parted in the middle and hanging past her shoulders ... Certified Medium & Spiritualist on her business card, would look up with her eyes closed and shake her head to one side, a quick little move to get her hair out of her face ...
He puts down the manuscript and smiles shyly, permitting himself the luxury of enjoying the rhythm of his words and savoring the pleasure of introducing a new character into his menagerie, which already includes enough memorable inhabitants to fill the endzone of Joe Robbie Stadium.
Slumped comfortably on a couch in the sun-washed living room-soon-to-be-office of his elegant two-story house in posh Bloomfield Village, a quiet Detroit suburb, Leonard rests a Reeboked right foot on his left knee. Nothing about him, from his gray beard and scuffed athletic shoes to the dark blue Ralph Lauren sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off at the elbow, indicates that this is one of the country's more successful and prolific living authors. Since he started writing more than a quarter century ago, he has published 31 novels ("Rap" will be No. 32), and two collections of his work. He also has written 16 screenplays and almost half a hundred short stories.
Temporarily ignoring the box sitting on his lap, the slightly built Leonard talks animatedly about his background and his career. A native of New Orleans, Leonard moved to Memphis before entering kindergarten, and from there, as a teenager, to Detroit. After graduating from the University of Detroit High School in 1943, he enlisted in the Navy and served with the Seabees in the Pacific Theater. When he mustered out in 1946, he returned to Michigan and enrolled in the University of Detroit, graduating in 1950 with a degree in English and Philosophy.
His first literary hero was Ernest Hemingway. "I studied him," Leonard says. "I mean I studied him carefully." And, like thousands of other budding writers, he began by imitating Papa's style. But soon, Leonard says, he became somewhat disillusioned with his idol, at least as a writer whose style he wanted to emulate. "He didn't have much of a sense of humor; he took himself far too seriously. By then, I recognized that a writer's style comes out of his attitude and I realized I didn't share Hemingway's attitude. I have much more humor than he does."
The next writer he discovered that he truly admired was Richard Bissel. "I liked his construction; how he described people. I knew that I could learn a lot from that guy," he says, his voice warm in recollection.
A pragmatist who early on recognized that a writer's primary obligation is to earn a living, Leonard turned to a genre that was hot at the time and one which he figured would be relatively lucrative: Westerns.
He began by writing short stories and peddling them to the popular magazines of the period: Argosy, Zane Grey Western, The Saturday Evening Post. Flush with his success, he wrote his first novel, "The Bounty Hunters," and saw it published in 1953. He followed that with a string of semi-remunerative oaters that encouraged him to believe he was on the road to success and led to his decision, in 1961, to quit his job at the ad agency and devote all his efforts to writing. Unfortunately, this move coincided with the collapse of the Western as a financially profitable genre and Leonard was forced to take a series of freelance jobs -- corporate work, screenplays, whatever put bread on the table -- until he could re-establish himself in another area. What helped considerably was the sale to a film producer of one of his earlier novels, "Hombre," which later was chosen as one of the 25 best Western novels of all time by the Western Writers of America.
"It brought in $10,000 and I figured that was enough to last me for six months, which would be long enough to write a non-Western novel," he says. That book, "The Big Bounce," was also made into a movie and served as a foundation for Leonard's later work.
Over the years,
Hollywood has been good to him; an amazingly high percentage of his books
(20 out of 24) have been made into movies or optioned by filmakers. Among
his books that have made it to the screen, in addition to "Hombre," are
"The Moonshine War," "Valdez Is Coming," "Mr. Majestyk," "Fifty-Two Pickup,"
"Cat Chaser," "Stick" and "Glitz." Filming of another movie based on his
book, "Get Shorty," began in January. It stars John Travolta with Gene
Hackman and DeVito playing smaller roles. Also, much to Leonard's delight,
filmmaker Quetin (Pulp Fiction) Tarrantino recently bought four of his
books: "Killshot," "Bandits," "Rum Punch" and "Freaky Deaky," one of which,
"Killshot," Tarrantino plans to write and produce himself.
A few yards away, just on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows that dominate the far wall, two large, furry squirrels are scampering in newly fallen snow, oblivious to the outside temperature that hovers in the low double digits. In the near distance is a swimming pool, covered now for the winter, and toward the rear of the spacious backyard is a tennis court, a facility that prompted Leonard, who will turn 70 this year, to take up the sport soon after he bought the house five years ago. ("My backhand is weak," he says apologetically, "it looks like I'm playing table tennis.")
"Rap," he says, swinging the discussion back to his new book, was particularly enjoyable to write because he was able to carry forward some of the characters from his previous book, "Pronto." This situation the prevented him from doing this before, he explains, goes back to 1980 after Hollywood optioned one of his novels entitled "City Primeval." At the time he sold the option he already had another novel in the works which featured the same main character that was in "City Primeval." But after the film option was signed, the Hollywood producer told Leonard he could not use that character in his new book, "Split Images," since the name had been sold along with the rights to make the book into a movie.
"City Primeval" has yet to make it to the screen but it taught Leonard a valuable lesson. From then on he made it a point not to continue his characters from one book to the other. At least until "Riding the Rap," where he avoided the "character" dilemma by refusing to sell those rights when he optioned his previous book, "Pronto."
When it came out in 1993, "Pronto" featured three people Leonard had become inordinately fond of: A U.S. Marshal named Raylan Givens, a Clint Eastwood-type from the Kentucky hills; a woman identified only as Joyce, a former topless dancer who always performed wearing her glasses because she felt that made the men in the audience look upon her in a more sisterly fashion, and Harry Arno, an aging and likable bookmaker who compiled a small fortune by skimming from the mob. These three now continue their adventures in "Rap."
In "Pronto" the reader learned that Harry, his pockets full of mob money, had fled to Rapallo, a small town on the Italian coast, hoping to stay there the remainder of his days, living the quiet life of a respected expatriate. Joyce was his girlfriend and Raylan Givens was the law enforcement officer sent to bring him back. Without getting too much into the convoluted plot, by the time "Pronto" ended all three characters had returned to South Florida, although Joyce had left Harry and taken up with Raylan.
Early on in "Rap" the reader learns that the Raylan/Joyce relationship is floundering because of Joyce's continuing affection for Harry. To complicate matters, it looks as though Raylan is going to begin an affair with Leonard's new character, Dawn Navarro, a woman the writer obviously likes very much.
Picking up the manuscript of "Rap," Leonard resumes reading: She (Dawn) sat him (Raylan) in an old mohair sofa, brought over a card table and a straight-back chair for herself, saying she would use psychometry, read him through touch and, once she was seated, placed slender fingers on his coalminer hands resting flat on the table...
Having implied through this simple scene that Dawn, a born clairvoyant, so blessed because she is a Sagittarius with a "Grand Trine and three yods in her natal chart," is attracted to the laconic lawman, Leonard then establishes a reciprocal feeling:
The way her
hair was parted in the middle and hung long and straight made Raylan think
of how girls looked back in the days of hippies and flower children. Otherwise
she seemed to have no particular style, wearing jeans and a loose white
T-shirt. He believed her eyes were green and would check it out when she
opened them again. He had already decided she was good-looking enough to
be in a pageant or have a job on TV pointing to game-show prizes. The only
thing that bothered him about her, looking at her hands resting on his,
she bit her fingernails as far down as he had ever seen fingernails bitten
...
Leonard's invented people mean everything to him, and in all his work his emphasis has been on character development and dialogue. Once he introduces the players, Leonard-the-writer disappears, leaving it up to the participants to describe what's going on. There is virtually no narrative in Leonard's work; he tells his stories almost exclusively through conversation and character observation.
"My characters have to talk," he explains. "I have to think of a way of telling the story in the character's style. I want it to always be the sound of the character so the reader will never, ever, be aware of me."
The first thing he does when he begins a new book is decide on a plot and assemble his cast. Only after he has the general outline of what and who straight in his head does he begin composing.
Being conservative in his personal habits, Leonard writes the old-fashioned way: with a Mt. Blanc fountain pen on unlined sheets of buff-colored paper he has a stationery shop cut and glue into pads, sitting upright at an antique table turned into a desk, working a rigorous 9-6 daily schedule.
His scenes, he says, are sometimes slow to develop because he is so careful in crafting them. Sometimes that means re-writing a scene three or four times, each time telling the story from a different character's point of view until he is satisfied that he has it right. Because he emphasizes character development so strongly his people become ultra-real and take on lives of their own, both in his own mind and in those of many of his fans. And, like real people, they are often unpredictable. Sometimes, he says, the characters he thought would play a major role subside into the background while minor characters come to the fore. When he began "Pronto," for example, he planned to make Harry Arno the main character. "Then I realized I wouldn't be able to carry him so Raylan became my main character. This happens a lot with me; a very minor character becomes important."
Later, he transfers his hand-written scribblings to typewritten words using a new electric typewriter he recently purchased to replace an ancient manual model he had for 30 years. Finally, when he is almost finished with the book and is sure he knows how it will end, he turns the completed draft over to a professional typist.
He gets his ideas, he says, mainly from the news. For example the idea for "Rap" came to him from reading and watching reports about the hostages in Lebanon. While pondering the circumstances, he began turning over in his mind what might happen if someone in this country got the idea to take hostages with a financial rather than a political motive in mind.
In "Rap," Leonard arranges for this idea to occur to Warren "Chip" Ganz, the wastrel son of a wealthy elderly woman who has been shuttled off to a nursing home. Or as Leonard describes him in the book, "a skinny guy in his fifties trying to look hip."
Ganz conceives a plan to kidnap rich men but instead of demanding ransom he simply keeps them hostage until they become desperate. Then he offers them the chance to buy their way out of captivity. The victims themselves have the burden of finding a foolproof way of getting the money. If they don't, they're history, with no one the wiser since there is no indication, in the absence of a ransom demand, that a crime has been committed.
Since Ganz is only a petty criminal without the expertise or the muscle to handle the type of work he has in mind, he enlists two thugs to do the dirty work. Reaching for the manuscript, Leonard goes into his English teacher persona, reading his descriptions of the pair from the manuscript in his soothing radio voice:
The Puerto Rican, a slim, good-looking guy with dreamy eyes and a ponytail he twisted into a knot, said he was no longer a bounty hunter, but still knew how to find people. His name was Roberto Deogracias and was known as Bobby Deo and Bobby the Gardener ... Louis Lewis was originally from the Bahamas. He had come here as a little boy with his pretty American mama and a daddy who played steel drums; Louis could sound Bahamian if he wanted to, but he preferred being African-American and worked at it. A popular variation, he tried an Islamic name, Ibrahaim Abu Aziz, till Chip started calling him Honest Ib and then Boo for Abu and Louis decided that was enough ... He'd never gotten into Islam anyway, just played with the Arab name for a time, looking for respect more than smiles ...
It turns out that the two know each other from a mutual period of co-habitation at the state's maximum security prison and loom sharklike over the hapless Ganz.
Raylan gets involved through Joyce, who has taken it upon herself to be Harry Arno's protector. It happens that the first victim is Harry, who Ganz believes is sitting on $3 million in mob money secreted in a bank in the Bahamas. When Harry inexplicably disappears, Joyce appeals to Raylan to help her find him. Dawn Navarro comes into the story because she is initially involved in helping the villainous threesome snatch Harry.
If it sounds complicated in the telling, it is much less so in the reading. As usual, Leonard's prose flows as smoothly as warm syrup and is sprinkled throughout with insider jokes familiar primarily to those who have read his other books.
Readers are always asking him, he says, about what happened to so-and-so, and he derives considerable pleasure from creating new characters who are friends or relatives of those who have appeared in earlier novels. This happens in the very first page of "Rap."
"Listen to this," Leonard says eagerly, grabbing the manuscript:
Ocala Police picked up Dale Crowe Junior for weaving, two o'clock in the morning, crossing the center line and having a busted taillight. Then while Dale was blowing a point-one-nine they put his name and date of birth into the national crime computer and learned he was a fugitive felon, wanted on a three-year-old charge of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Incarceration...
Dale Crowe Junior is the son/nephew of characters appearing in earlier books and Leonard subtly joins him to those previous creations by writing a scene in which the conniving Dale, seeking a way to escape, tries to talk Raylan, who has come to pick him up and return him to Palm Beach, into stopping by his old homestead so he can say goodbye to his parents before going off to prison.
"My dad's never been to Palm Beach or seen the ocean. Never got any closer'n Twenty Mile Bend. You believe it? Spent his whole life over there around Belle Glade, Canal Point, Pahokee ..." he waited, eyes on the road, before saying, "You know, if we was to get off near Stuart we could take Seventy-six over to the lake, run on down to Belle Glade -- it wouldn't be more'n a few miles out of the way and I'd get to see my folks. I mean just stop and say hi, kiss my old mom ..."
Leonard smiles in anticipation of Raylan's reply:
"You old dad's never been to Palm Beach or seen the ocean," the marshal said, "but he's been up to Starke, hasn't he? He's seen the Florida State Prison. You have an uncle came out of there, Elvin Crowe, and another one did his time at Lake Butler. I think we'll skip visiting any of your kin this trip."
Dale Junior said, "My uncles're both dead."
And the marshal
said, "By gunshot, huh? You understand how I see your people?"...
The main problem with Leonard's books is not Leonard's but those who review him. Although he invariably gets good press, each of his books poses somewhat of a dilemma for the critics: They don't know how to categorize him.
"My books aren't mysteries," he says with a chuckle. "They're not PIs. And my heroes are not especially heroic." What they are are consistently highly readable stories about colorful and unusual people, some of whom happen to be dishonest in varying degrees, from amiable thieves like Harry Arno (who stole only from worse thieves) to sadists and murderers.
It is a formula that has worked for Leonard for more than a quarter of a century (he has published almost a book a year every year since 1968) and one which he will continue to use, certainly for his next book.
And what might that be about?
Again Leonard excuses himself, striding into the other room where his files are stored pending the move to his new living room office. When he returns he has a single sheet of paper in his hand, a copy of a wire service photo that appeared in the Detroit News almost a decade ago. There are only two people in the picture, a hefty man in the foreground and, standing behind him and to his right, a woman. She has her legs spread wide apart and her right hip juts at an angle, the better to support the shotgun whose butt is resting there. The caption identifies the two as U.S. marshals standing guard outside a federal courthouse.
"I don't know yet what the story is, but there's a book in that woman with the shotgun," Leonard says.
And, speaking of women characters and U.S. marshals, what about Raylan? Does he develop a romantic relationship with Dawn?
Leonard grins broadly, his weatherbeaten face crinkling like crumpled cellophane. "You have to wait until the last page to find out," he teases, his blue eyes sparkling.
And who says
he doesn't write mysteries?
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