Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard is an author.
Elmore Leonard was an American novelist and screenwriter who wrote fifty books and taught two generations how dialogue should sound. He started in Westerns in the 1950s, then moved into crime, and his rule was to leave out the parts readers skip. The result is a body of work with almost no description in it and characters who reveal themselves entirely through how they talk. Hollywood adapted him constantly and mostly badly, and the handful of films that got the rhythm right are the ones people still quote.
Books (23)
- The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard (2004)
- Gold Coast (1980)
- Last Stand at Saber River (1959)
- Split Images (1981)
- Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories (1975)
- The Moonshine War (1969)
- Naked Came the Manatee (1995)
- Up in Honey's Room (2006)
- McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (2002)
- Be Cool (1999)
- Cuba Libre (1998)
- Out of Sight (1996)
- Pronto (1993)
- Rum Punch (1992)
- Maximum Bob (1991)
- Get Shorty (1990)
- Killshot (1989)
- Freaky Deaky (1988)
- Touch (1987)
- Bandits (1987)
- LaBrava (1983)
- City Primeval (1980)
- Tishomingo Blues (1975)
Where to start with Elmore Leonard
Get Shorty is the best door in, a loan shark discovering he has the exact skills a film producer needs. Out of Sight is the most romantic thing he wrote and the tightest plot. Rum Punch is the one Tarantino filmed as Jackie Brown. LaBrava won the Edgar, and Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories holds the Westerns he started with.
The Miami and Detroit crime novels
The core of it: loan sharks, process servers and small-time operators who talk their way into more than they can handle. Get Shorty and Out of Sight are the best doors in, and LaBrava won the Edgar.
Deeper into the crime run
The novels for readers who already know the voice. Freaky Deaky and City Primeval are meaner, Maximum Bob is the funniest, and Pronto starts the Raylan Givens thread that television eventually found.
The Westerns he started with
Ten years of Westerns before the crime novels, and the discipline of them is exactly where the dialogue came from. Three-Ten to Yuma is the famous story and the collections hold the rest.