Elmore Leonard: Four Later Novels (Loa #280): Get Shorty / Rum Punch / Out of Sight / Tishomingo Blues

The Later Elmore Leonard In The Library Of America

American literature shows a great deal of breadth, depth, and diversity. In a time of polarization, Americans should learn from and share the accomplishments of their culture in literature and in other endeavors. One of the unique features of American literature, and culture, is the blurring of boundaries between "serious" edifying writing and "popular" writing for entertainment. The United States has produced literature, music, and art that straddles these lines.

The Library of America performs an irreplaceable service in preserving and presenting the best of American writing in the areas of novels, poetry, history, philosophy, journalism, and more. The series presents many books that include elements of both edification and entertainment, including outstanding works of genre fiction. Among these books are the works of Elmore Leonard (1925 -- 2013) who enjoyed a long career as a writer of Westerns and of crime and suspense fiction. The LOA has presented a great deal of Leonard. The most recent LOA Leonard book is a volume of four Western novels from early in his career. Before that, the LOA had published a set of three books each consisting of four novels from Leonard's career as a writer of crime novels. Before his death, Leonard had collaborated with the LOA in choosing the contents of the three volumes.

The book I am reviewing "Four Later Novels" is the last in the three-volume set and consists of works written between 1990 and 2002. It is impressive how Leonard continued to write and develop his work into old age. While these works are all in Leonard's distinctive style, it is valuable to see how different they are from each other in settings and characters. The books have settings in Florida, Mississippi, Detroit, and Hollywood and place is important to each work. Each book displays Leonard's gift for snappy, punchy colloquial dialogue which captures the nature of the speakers. Although the books involve crime and suspense, they have a lightness and a humor which is among their most appealing qualities. While the books are written to entertain, they will be some thinking about the meanings that lie just below the surface. Of the four books in this collection, the first three became successful Hollywood movies.

The earliest novel in this volume "Get Shorty" (1992) is probably Leonard's best-known work. It features a small-time Miami loan shark, Chili Palmer, who arrives in Hollywood via Las Vegas where he manages to indulge his lifelong passion for movies by writing a script. The book is also a satire of Leonard's own experiences in Hollywood and combines a story of loan sharking and drug dealings with the story of Hollywood characters. Chili himself is the main attraction of this book as he says "look at me" to his deadbeat debtors and they manage to pay what they owe. The book explores life mirroring films mirroring novels.

"Rum Punch" (1992) is set in Florida and tells a tangled tale of double-crossing in a large drug deal. The book has two primary characters, Jackie Brown, a flight attendant who is complicit in the drug enterprise and who wants to avoid prosecution while walking off with the heist and Max Cherry, an aging bail bondsman who befriends her. The fast-paced story takes many twists and turns while also suggesting the needs of its characters to find meaning and love in their otherwise materialistic lives.

On the whole, I found "Out of Sight" (1996) my favorite of these four books. Set in Florida and in Leonard's Detroit, the book combines crime with a surprisingly tender love story. It explores the relationship between Jack Foley, 47, a lifelong bank robber who escapes from a Florida prison as the book begins in Karen Sisco, 27. a Deputy U.S. Marshall stationed in Miami. Early in the story, the two meet and are briefly bedded together where an undeniable chemistry and attraction develops. The attraction continues as Foley travels to Detroit to join a gang of no-nonsense, fierce crooks and Sisco is sent in pursuit. The relationship between the two is poignantly described, and Sisco develops into one of Leonard's best-drawn characters.

The final novel in this volume "Tishomingo Blues" (2002) is a large-scale sprawling work set in Mississippi, It was Leonard's own favorite among his books. The novel features many eccentric and sharply-drawn characters hailing from Mississippi and Detroit. The plot centers around a civil war reenactment of the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads fought June 10, 1864, during Sherman's march to Atlanta. The characters in the story include Dennis Lenahan, a high diver down on his luck, and a former professional baseball player, Charlie Hoke. The book features some tawdry scenes of casinos, brothels, and bars. Civil war reenacting, the blues, drug violence, and American lives, both North and South, figure prominently in this book which displays the difficulty of moral choice in exploring the activities of its many characters.

In reading these four Leonard novels, I found the whole greater than the sum of the individual parts. The novels are sharply written and fun while still having their stories to tell. The novels in this LOA volume help show the range of American writing, including the genre of crime and suspense. They are a worthy addition to the LOA and and good way for readers to think about and appreciate the scope of American culture.

Robin Friedman