Writer Elmore Leonard has died at age 87

[The_Second_Stone]

@KneadToKnow

Yes. And with luck, I will go to my grave with that being the only Jennifer Lopez film I’ve ever seen.

“You wanted to tussle. We tussled.”

[WordMan]

@Sherrerd

I was sorry to hear about this. He was one of those people who achieved an escape from the concept of time, in a way: his work is interesting and relevant to people of any generation, and he himself never seemed to be “an old man” despite reaching 87.

I agree with this. His style, his characters, exist in a self-contained space. Their interactions, their grimy humanity with enough plot to keep things in motion, has timeless appeal.

Of all the novelists I have burned through with crushes and obsessions great and small, Elmore Leonard is one who stuck with me. Sometimes his seemingly-easy approach was simply easy - his too-funny period with Maximum Bob and a few like that; leave it to Hiaason. But damn when he got it right, which was consistent most of the time - huge fun to inhabit. I remember first reading City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit and thinking “this is some dry, badass stuff.” Easy to see why folks like Tarantino bow down to him.

Incidentally, back in the day when I was actively collecting, Elmore Leonard first editions were really affordable. $25 - $35 for the common ones, a few hundred for Fifty-Two Pickup, Unknown Man No. 89, etc…

[Chefguy]

I’ve liked most everything he’s written. Get Shorty was a great read, and a terrific screenplay. It’s a big loss for fiction.

[Southern_Yankee]

One of my Top 5 favorite authors. R.I.P.

[Southern_Yankee]

Elmore Leonard left legacy of character and characters, says his friend Mike...

I once said that the only thing better than reading Elmore Leonard was re-reading him. And the only thing better than all that was knowing him, and having him be your friend, and being on the other end of the line when he would let you hear his characters come to life. I will miss him.

[Tangent]

@Enright3

and on a side note; I never understood what seems to be universal hatred for this movie. I liked it.

Universal hatred for Out of Sight? It was received pretty well by critics and audiences. It’s at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and 85 on Metacritic. It wasn’t a huge box office hit, but Clooney, Lopez, and director Soderbergh were all praised for their work on it. Anyone I’ve ever talked with about it has liked it.

[Agnostic_Pagan]

He has been one of my favorite writers. Saw him a few years ago at a reading in Saint Louis. Never would have guessed he was over 80. Still had a great wit and vitality to him.

Thank you for the wonderful stories. You definitely improved crime fiction and Hollywood screenwriting.

I do think he paved the way for writers and directors like Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.

[denquixote]

@Enright3

and on a side note; I never understood what seems to be universal hatred for this movie. I liked it.

If you are talking about “Out of Sight,” it is one of my all-time favorites.

[WordMan]

@Tangent

Universal hatred for Out of Sight? It was received pretty well by critics and audiences. It’s at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and 85 on Metacritic. It wasn’t a huge box office hit, but Clooney, Lopez, and director Soderbergh were all praised for their work on it. Anyone I’ve ever talked with about it has liked it.

Yeah - it is one of the few movies of this ilk - post-Tarantino artsy genre movies; a style movie critic AO Scott likes to call “Strained Pulp” - that really worked. It is more “universally liked” vs. hated, and is one of the few roles that actually helped Lopez - it gave her a small bit of cred that she quickly frittered away…

[Crotalus]

I just read an RIP article on RealClearBooks that contained a great quote from him.
[QUOTE=Elmore Leonard]
…if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
[/QUOTE]

[crucible]

Sometime past, he ws convinced to publish 10 rules, and they were things that almost all writers ignore at times, and he was hard put to understand why anyone took them so seriously. The one I’m sure he meant was that you should leave out any of the parts the reader won’t be interested in. And, as you say, if it sounds like writing, rewrite it.

Leonard knew how to write funny, ironic material, stuff that makes you shake your head, and agree, ‘that’s a pity, but it’s true’. His style was ‘storytelling’, and all of us could hardly aspire to a better way of doing it. that style fits the genre’ he wrote in. It doesn’t work in many other genre’