"The writer has to have patience, the perseverance to just sit there alone and grind it out. And if that's not worth doing," Leonard said, "then he doesn't want to write." Leonard wanted to write from a young age, and write he did, first producing western stories and western novels before moving toward the crime novels that made his reputation. His is the career of a working writer the likes we don't see much of anymore. About COOLER THAN COOL, Pulitzer Prize winner Dave Barry writes that "If you love Elmore Leonard-and who doesn't?-you'll love this fascinating, richly detailed account of how one of our greatest storytellers lived his life and learned his craft."Over the course of his sixty-year career, Elmore Leonard published forty-five novels that had enduring appeal to readers around the world. Revered by other writers such as Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Raymond Carver, and Stephen King, his books were innovative in their blending of a Hemingway-inspired noirish minimalism and masterful use of dialogue over exposition-a direct evolution spurred by his years as a screenwriter.When C. M. Kushins was fifteen he worked up his courage and wrote a fan letter to Elmore and included one of his own short stories. Elmore proofread it and wrote an encouraging letter back. Years later, Kushins finally got a short story published and Elmore sent him a congratulatory note. When he first started thinking about writing this book, Kushins went nosing around the University of South Carolina archives-and found his own letters going back to when he was fifteen. Elmore had saved all their correspondence. It was this story that helped him get the Leonard family on board with the book. Indeed, the Leonard family has fully participated, contributing original interviews, additional personal correspondence, exclusive photographs, as well as access to Leonard's unfinished final novel. The biography also includes unpublished, loose memoir excerpts. These are included here for the first time to illuminate key passages of importance throughout Leonard's life in his own words.Leonard's fiction contained many layers, and at the heart of his work were progressive themes, stemming from his years as a student of the Jesuit religious order, his personal beliefs in social justice, and his successful battle over alcoholism. He drew inspiration from greats like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, but the true motivation and brilliance behind his crime writing was the ongoing class struggle to achieve the American Dream-often seen through the eyes of law enforcement officers and the criminals they vowed to apprehend.COOLER THAN COOL is not just a biography for fans of Leonard's fiction. His is work was also the source material for many movies including
3:10 to Yuma, Hombre, Jackie Brown, Get Shorty, Out of Sight-as well as the TV series
Justified-and influenced American filmmaking, especially the western and crime genres.Definitive and revealing, COOLER THAN COOL shows Leonard emerging as one of the last writers of the "pulp fiction" era of midcentury America, to ultimately become one of the most successful storytellers of the twentieth century, whose influence continues to have far-reaching effects on both contemporary crime fiction and American filmmaking.One more thing: 2025 also marks Elmore Leonard's centennial. In September, Mariner Books will bring a never-published novella by the author,
Picket Line, with an introduction by Kushins, timed to Leonard's October birthday.
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