Identity Theory's Robert Birnbaum interviews my current favorite crime writer, George P. Pelecanos, here. Pelecanos comes across pretty much the way a fan of his might expect. We already know the guy has some kind of work ethic - 12 books in 12 years, producer of independent films, script-writer, etc. He's almost Dickensian that way.
GP clearly won't take crap from critics, either. Responding to his own critics is beneath him; responding to critics of his friends, however ... look out!
And check this out: when you read this exchange -
RB: What does your first draft of a book look like? 900 pages?
GP: My first draft is the draft that goes out the door.
RB: No kidding?
- you can actually hear Birnbaum swallow his teeth! No, wait. That was me...
2 comments:
Hey! I just finished my second Pelecanos - "Hell to Pay" - two days ago! Wondering what our sometime philandering hero will turn out like in book three, now that he has proposed marriage to the woman of his dreams. My taste in crime novels goes more toward the legal thriller (e.g. Turow) than the hardboiled detective novel (e.g. Pelecanos), but I find P. very evocative ... this is really what the mean streets of Washington DC are like? Well, well. Raises issues for my culturally transformative slash church plant-participating imagination.
Turow is definitely the real deal. I wonder why he's not mentioned in the same breath as Richard Price? Funny how equating someone to RP has become the equivalent of equating someone to Dostoevsky, isn't it?
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