Contact us on (02) 8445 2300
For all customer service and order enquiries

Woodslane Online Catalogues

9781421424040 Add to Cart Academic Inspection Copy

Being Cool:

The Work of Elmore Leonard
Description
Table of
Contents
Reviews
Google
Preview
Widely known as the crime fiction writer whose work led to the movies Get Shorty and Out of Sight, Elmore Leonard had a special knack for creating "cool" characters. In Being Cool, Charles J. Rzepka looks at what makes the dope-dealers, bookies, grifters, financial advisors, talent agents, shady attorneys, hookers, models, and crooked cops of Leonard's world cool. They may be nefarious, but they are also confident, skilled, and composed. And they are good at what they do. Taking being cool as the highway through Leonard's life and works, Rzepka finds plenty of byways to explore along the way.
 
Rzepka delineates the stages and patterns that characterize Leonard's creative evolution. Like jazz greats, he forged an individual writing style immediately recognizable for its voice and rhythm, including his characters' rat-a-tat recitations, curt backhands, and ragged trains of thought. Rzepka draws on more than twelve hours of personal interviews with Leonard and applies what he learned to his close analysis of the writer's long life and prodigious output: 45 published novels, 39 published and unpublished short stories, and numerous essays written over the course of six decades.
 

Preface
1. Being Cool
2. Being Other(s)
3. Plays Well with Others
4. Choruses
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index

""Rzepka exhibits a considerable techne of his own combining a playful critical voice with detailed close reading. Those interested in the craft of writing would are sure to enjoy Rzepka's interpretation of Leonard's style""

Google Preview content