There is a superb essay in the current Atlantic magazine on Elmore Leonard which shows with clarity and sympathy just what is good and what is bad about him and how they interact. It’s also very funny:
Though pioneered a century ago by the English dandy Ronald Firbank, and then popularized by a man whose first name was Evelyn, the technique of letting conversation carry a story is regarded in America as the tough guy’s way to write a novel, and Leonard makes no secret of his pride in it. Unfortunately, it compels him (as it did Firbank and Waugh) to stick to talkative characters. This excludes the true professionals on both sides of the law, leaving us with small-time cops and ex-cons who rarely keep quiet long enough to seem cool. They’re street-smart for sure, but although the recurring interjection “The fuck’m I doing here?” certainly puts Sartre in a nutshell, no one seems to think about anything, at least not anything interesting.
I don’t want to come over all Brad de Long and turn this post into an extended quote fest. So you will just have to find for yourself the passages — and there are several — which make you want to run out and buy particular neglected books. Even if you dn’t buy them, the whole essay is an example of what book reviewing ought to be. the bylin is B.R. Myers, listed as a constributing editor of Atlantic. What else has she written?