Leonard Part 41

CITYPAPER.NET EXCLUSIVE: Talking with Elmore Leonard on the release of his 41st(!) novel.

by Duane Swierczynski

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Published: May 9, 2007

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Up in Honey's Room is Elmore Leonard's 41st novel, as well as the third installment of a loose trilogy (starting with The Hot Kid and running through his recent New York Times Magazine serial, Comfort to the Enemy.) But that doesn't mean he had the whole thing mapped out in advance. "I'm always making it up as I go along," says Leonard. "I don't want the plot to be obvious. I want the reader to be surprised at what develops." Tonight, Leonard will be at the Central Branch of the Free Library reading from Honey's Room, which follows a gang of German spies in WWII-era Detroit, and features my 2007 nomination for Most Surreal Piece of Crime Fiction Dialogue: "Sieg Heil, y'all. I'm Honey Deal." I spoke to Leonard by phone Friday, May 4.

City Paper: Was Up in Honey's Room always planned as the third book in a trilogy?

Elmore Leonard.: No, I didn't think about it that way. It was after The New York Times asked me if I would do a serial [Comfort to the Enemy]. So I decided on 14 parts, and concentrated on all of the German POWs in the country at that time � 250,000. I couldn't believe it. I didn't know anything about it. Five hundred camps. All having a pretty good time, too.

CP: I was surprised how lax it all seemed � POWs would escape, have fun, get caught, go back …

EL: I think maybe because there were so many Americans of German ancestry. They looked different, but still they looked like us. So I don't think anybody in nearby towns were afraid of them.

CP: I love the scene where one character, Otto Penzler, meets his Jewish girlfriend. She's not at all troubled, even after she learns he's a former SS officer.

EL: No, she's not.

CP: Did the real-life Otto Penzler [owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City] crack a smile over this?

EL: He did read it, and he called me. I'm going to be at his store next week. He's a good guy. He has 60,000 first-edition crime mystery stories in his home. Sixty thousand.

CP: Was it tough to write [Comfort to the Enemy] in weekly installments?

EL: It wasn't that. It's that I had to change my language. Guys weren't talking like soldiers, or even the law guys, the marshals, because they can't use any obscenities in the paper. So it was a little different. I only had maybe one installment to go when they began to publish it. So I had a fairly good idea of what would happen. Deadlines have never been a problem with me. I'm always way ahead of it. Because once I'm into a book, I love to stick with it as long as I can. It's tough to go away. I've got 60 pages of my next one, and next Tuesday I start my book tour. So it won't be until the end of May when I get back to the book.

CP: Speaking of your next book, I heard on your podcast that you took three characters from previous books and set them off in a new story.

EL: The plot always comes out of the characters. That's the way I write books. And these three are some of my favorites. One, Jack Foley � George Clooney played him [in Out of Sight]. And Clooney said it's one of his favorite characters, so we're going to show him this book when I finish it. But Jack Foley's back in prison, facing 30 years, and I want him to meet Dawn Navarro, because I loved her, and didn't feel I enough with her, and it'll be just a few years later � I'm not going to do it actual time later, she'd be too old. But she'll be in her early 30s when she meets Foley. She's a psychic, and she knows things. He doesn't believe it at first, but she tells things about him that are true.

And then the bad guy, Cundo Rey, he's from LaBrava, and I though of him, and I though, God, I hope he's still alive. I read the last chapter or two of LaBrava, and I found out LaBrava shot him in the chest three times. Oh my God … But! La Brava just assumes he's dead, and leaves. And so the emergency guys come, and his heart's still beating.

CP: Do you have an end point in mind? Or is it total improvisation?

EL: No, I'm always making it up as I go along. The first 100 pages seem to work, because I'm introducing characters, and we find out what their angle is. But then from 100 � and I always think of it that way, in three parts � but from 100 to 200 is when I have to do a little plotting. And I don't want the plot to be obvious. I want the reader to wonder what's going to happen and be surprised at what develops. Because now in that second act some of the secondary characters will get into action. And then, of course, the third act, in the past my manuscripts all run around 350-360 pages, around in there. So once I approach page 300, I have to start thinking of the ending. And there are always several different ways you can end it. I choose one that I like and just go for it.

CP: Have you ever had a situation where a character didn't want to … well, go anywhere?

EL: Yeah. And when I finish a book, and I wonder what they're doing now. They become so real to me � I know them better than I know some friends even. That's always important, of course � they've got to move the plot. But that's the fun of it. To make it up as you go along. I don't want to use a formula.

I almost used a continuing character. Back in 1980, my publisher said let's use this homicide cop again � Raymond Cruz was his name. So I put him in the next book and sent it to my agent in Hollywood, and he said, "You've got to change this guy's name!" Because the studio owned him. So then, we'd have to show it to this studio, and if they didn't want to buy it, it was dead.

So I changed Raymond Cruz. But I went through the manuscript by hand, and I missed one place. And Raymond was still there. A couple of people wrote to me and said, "Who's Raymond?" I left it in. To see if they were paying attention. [Chuckles.]

CP: This changed with Carl Webster, who's now appeared in two books and one serial. Is Hollywood not a concern anymore?

EL: I'm not worried about it. I can't worry about that. I haven't sold the screen rights to Hot Kid or the serial, so there's no problem. It could all be one. It could be made into one picture.

CP: Any interesting film adaptations on the horizon?

EL: There's another one of mine coming out � 3: 10 to Yuma. I wrote that in 1953, sold it to Dime Western for $50. They paid two cents a word. Then in 1957, it came out as a picture with Glenn Ford. It was a very simple little story, and it worked. They had to add 20 minutes to the front end of my story to make it the right length. Then last year, it was announced that Tom Cruise was going to do 3: 10 to Yuma, and it was going to be an $80 million picture. Then he left and Russell Crowe, and then the budget came down to $50 million. I don't think it could have cost more than a million to make back in 1957.

CP: Your son, Peter, just sold his debut crime novel.

EL.: It's a very good book, too. And it's got wonderful characters that really come alive.

CP: Did he grow up wanting to be like his father?

EL: No, he never did. Never at all. At one time, five years ago, he wanted to be a screenwriter, because he saw that as quick money. But it doesn't work that way. So he decided to write a book. He has an ad agency, and he was dying to get out of it. But since they do so much work and make so much money, it's hard to just walk away. But then he started writing the book, and got into it, and discovered that the act of writing is where the pleasure is, not the having written, and selling it.

CP: Did Peter watch you at the legal pad and typewriter, writing your books? Surely, something must have rubbed off.

EL: It might have had an effect. Oh � I don't use a legal pad. It's an eight-and-a-half-by-11 yellow pad, unlined. It's the same kind of yellow pad they used at the ad agency when I worked, so when I left, I would just go to a print shop and order two thousand pages more. I write everything by hand first. And then it goes on the typewriter. I did get an electric typewriter about 15 years ago. I was afraid of it at first.

CP: Seriously?

EL: Well, I just liked the sound of the manual typewriter. It really clanged. Though this one sounds pretty good, too.

Elmore Leonard reads Thu., May 10, 7 p.m. Free Library of Philadelphia: Central Branch, a1901 Vine St. www.library.phila.gov.

 

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