What do you think?
Rate this book
The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany
Over the course of a fifty-year career, Donald Westlake published nearly one hundred books, including not one - but two - long-running series, starring the hard-hitting Parker and the hapless John Dortmunder. In the six years since his death, Westlake's reputation has only grown, with fans continuing to marvel at his tightly constructed plots, no-nonsense prose, and keen, even unsettling, insights into human behavior. With The Getaway Car, we get our first glimpse at another side of Westlake the writer: what he did when he wasn't busy making stuff up. And it's fascinating. Setting previously published pieces, many little-seen, alongside never-before-published material found in Westlake's working files, the book offers a clear picture of the man behind the books - including his background, experience, and thoughts on his own work and that of his peers, mentors, and influences. The book opens with revealing (and funny) fragments from an unpublished autobiography, then goes on to offer an extended history of private eye fiction, a conversation among Westlake's numerous pen names, letters to friends and colleagues, interviews, appreciations of fellow writers, and much, much more.There's even a recipe for Sloth a la Dortmunder. Really. Rounded out with a Foreword by Westlake's longtime friend Lawrence Block, The Getaway Car is a fitting capstone to a storied career, and a wonderful opportunity to revel anew in the voice and sensibility of a master craftsman.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
62 people are currently reading
249 people want to read
About the author
Donald E. Westlake
434 books980 followersDonald E. Westlake (1933-2008) was one of the most prolific and talented authors of American crime fiction. He began his career in the late 1950's, churning out novels for pulp houses—often writing as many as four novels a year under various pseudonyms such as Richard Stark—but soon began publishing under his own name. His most well-known characters were John Dortmunder, an unlucky thief, and Parker, a ruthless criminal. His writing earned him three Edgar Awards: the 1968 Best Novel award for God Save the Mark; the 1990 Best Short Story award for "Too Many Crooks"; and the 1991 Best Motion Picture Screenplay award for The Grifters. In addition, Westlake also earned a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.
Westlake's cinematic prose and brisk dialogue made his novels attractive to Hollywood, and several motion pictures were made from his books, with stars such as Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson's noir classic.
Some of the pseudonyms he used include
• Richard Stark
• Timothy J. Culver
• Tucker Coe
• Curt Clark
• J. Morgan Cunningham
• Judson Jack Carmichael
• D.E. Westlake
• Donald I. Vestlejk
• Don Westlake
Westlake's cinematic prose and brisk dialogue made his novels attractive to Hollywood, and several motion pictures were made from his books, with stars such as Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson's noir classic.
Some of the pseudonyms he used include
• Richard Stark
• Timothy J. Culver
• Tucker Coe
• Curt Clark
• J. Morgan Cunningham
• Judson Jack Carmichael
• D.E. Westlake
• Donald I. Vestlejk
• Don Westlake
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
November 17, 2014
“No matter where he was headed, Don always drove like he was behind the wheel of the getaway car."
- Abby Adams Westlake
Apparently the late Donald Westlake wrote as fast as he drove. After his big break came in the late ‘50s by getting paid $600 to write a porno, he went on to author over 90 novels under various pseudonyms. He earned three Edgar Awards, an Academy Award nomination for screenplay, and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writer’s Association.
He’s probably best known for creating two thieves who couldn't be more different. One was a hard-boiled ruthless anti-hero and all-around son-of-a-bitch named Parker that Westlake published under the pen name of Richard Stark. The other was the luckless John Dortmunder, a sad sack that you couldn’t help but feel sorry for even as you laughed at his comic misadventures. That’s the essence of Westlake to me, that he could have two characters who have exactly the same criminal job yet their personalities and books couldn’t be more different, and I always want to read more stories about both of them.
This book collects a lot of non-fiction odds and ends from Westlake’s papers including letters, an excerpt from an unpublished autobiography, and introductions to various other works. There’s a fun essay he wrote in which he imagines a meeting between himself and his various pen names, and his wife also has a humorous piece on how Westlake’s personality would change when he was writing under one of his aliases. Westlake also had a lot to say on the mystery genre, and there’s one incredible act of bridge burning in a published essay on how he had quit writing sci-fi because the industry was essentially dead from an economic perspective for writers like him.
Taken as a whole, all of these provide a lot of interesting insight into Westlake’s thoughts on writing as both an art and a business as well as how he viewed his own career. And because this is Westlake, it’s got chuckle worthy comments on practically every page even though he remarks at several points that he never considered himself particularly funny and seems highly amused that he was best known under his own name as a comic mystery writer. Lawrence Block makes it a point in his touching introduction to explain that he didn’t think Westlake told jokes, but that he was a witty man who tried very hard to make his writing amusing.
The thing that really stands out is that Westlake hustled. He didn’t sit around waiting for a muse to inspire or him or rewriting a single line over and over. He had bills to pay so he produced constantly. Authors like him who churn out words to make a living often have a pragmatic and workmanlike approach to their writing. That’s a recipe for people with less talent and more cynicism to become hacks. For a writer like Westlake that discipline and craftsmanship made him one of the greats.
Also posted at Kemper's Book Blog.
- Abby Adams Westlake
Apparently the late Donald Westlake wrote as fast as he drove. After his big break came in the late ‘50s by getting paid $600 to write a porno, he went on to author over 90 novels under various pseudonyms. He earned three Edgar Awards, an Academy Award nomination for screenplay, and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writer’s Association.
He’s probably best known for creating two thieves who couldn't be more different. One was a hard-boiled ruthless anti-hero and all-around son-of-a-bitch named Parker that Westlake published under the pen name of Richard Stark. The other was the luckless John Dortmunder, a sad sack that you couldn’t help but feel sorry for even as you laughed at his comic misadventures. That’s the essence of Westlake to me, that he could have two characters who have exactly the same criminal job yet their personalities and books couldn’t be more different, and I always want to read more stories about both of them.
This book collects a lot of non-fiction odds and ends from Westlake’s papers including letters, an excerpt from an unpublished autobiography, and introductions to various other works. There’s a fun essay he wrote in which he imagines a meeting between himself and his various pen names, and his wife also has a humorous piece on how Westlake’s personality would change when he was writing under one of his aliases. Westlake also had a lot to say on the mystery genre, and there’s one incredible act of bridge burning in a published essay on how he had quit writing sci-fi because the industry was essentially dead from an economic perspective for writers like him.
Taken as a whole, all of these provide a lot of interesting insight into Westlake’s thoughts on writing as both an art and a business as well as how he viewed his own career. And because this is Westlake, it’s got chuckle worthy comments on practically every page even though he remarks at several points that he never considered himself particularly funny and seems highly amused that he was best known under his own name as a comic mystery writer. Lawrence Block makes it a point in his touching introduction to explain that he didn’t think Westlake told jokes, but that he was a witty man who tried very hard to make his writing amusing.
The thing that really stands out is that Westlake hustled. He didn’t sit around waiting for a muse to inspire or him or rewriting a single line over and over. He had bills to pay so he produced constantly. Authors like him who churn out words to make a living often have a pragmatic and workmanlike approach to their writing. That’s a recipe for people with less talent and more cynicism to become hacks. For a writer like Westlake that discipline and craftsmanship made him one of the greats.
Also posted at Kemper's Book Blog.
December 22, 2014
The Getaway Car is a collection of Donald Westlake's nonfiction work.
I arrived really late to the Westlake party. In fact, when he died, I think I'd only read a handful of his books. Since then, however, I've probably read 25-30 more and thus I was interested in this collection.
The Getaway Car offers up letters, introductions, and essays Donald Westlake wrote during his lifetime. He covers a wide range of topics, like how he wasn't able to support himself writing science fiction in a scathing letter to Xero, a sf fanzine, to his trials and tribulations involving Hollywood. Along the way, he covers such diverse subjects as Lawrence Block, Rex Stout, Peter Rabe, and his wife's tuna casserole recipe.
I liked this book as it shows Westlake was a clever guy no matter what he was writing. There wasn't a lot of meat to it, however. It was kind of thin and some of the selections seemed included to pad the page count.
That being said, I did enjoy a lot of it. It makes me want to read more Peter Rabe, for instance. It also drives home the point of how unknown and unappreciated Westlake was by the general public. With 90 novels under his belt, he was the James Patterson of his era, with the added bonus of actually being a good writer.
Three out of five stars. Maybe 2015 will be the year of the great Parker re-read.
I arrived really late to the Westlake party. In fact, when he died, I think I'd only read a handful of his books. Since then, however, I've probably read 25-30 more and thus I was interested in this collection.
The Getaway Car offers up letters, introductions, and essays Donald Westlake wrote during his lifetime. He covers a wide range of topics, like how he wasn't able to support himself writing science fiction in a scathing letter to Xero, a sf fanzine, to his trials and tribulations involving Hollywood. Along the way, he covers such diverse subjects as Lawrence Block, Rex Stout, Peter Rabe, and his wife's tuna casserole recipe.
I liked this book as it shows Westlake was a clever guy no matter what he was writing. There wasn't a lot of meat to it, however. It was kind of thin and some of the selections seemed included to pad the page count.
That being said, I did enjoy a lot of it. It makes me want to read more Peter Rabe, for instance. It also drives home the point of how unknown and unappreciated Westlake was by the general public. With 90 novels under his belt, he was the James Patterson of his era, with the added bonus of actually being a good writer.
Three out of five stars. Maybe 2015 will be the year of the great Parker re-read.
October 29, 2014
I came late to Westlake, and the more I learn of him, the better I like him, both as a writer and as a man. This potpourri of non-fiction—letters, essays, book introductions—is sometimes serious, more often funny, but always well crafted. Lawrence Block’s introduction takes editor Stahl to task for referring to Westlake’s “jokes,” and is right to do so. There’s not a joke in the book, though there are lot of laughs. Westlake’s strength was his wit, which showed itself in his ability to phrase what would have seemed commonplace coming from anyone else in such a way the corner of your mouth can’t help but turn up. Read this, even if you’re not a Westlake fan. Not only will it be great fun, but you’ll likely become a fan.
November 23, 2015
Collection of essays, correspondence, interviews, and reviews with/by Donald Westlake.
Some of the entries are interviews done with alter-egos Tucker Coe and Richard Stark.
Terrific read.
Recommended!
July 17, 2015
A collection of Donald E. Westlake's non fiction. Most people know that he wrote under half a dozen names, such as RICHARD STARK, TUCKER COE, SAMUEL HOLT, ALAN MARSHALL, EDWIN WEST, JOHN DEXTER, DON HOLLIDAY, and CURT CLARK, to list just some of the names commonly known. Mr. Westlake is credited with writing one hundred books, however, I'm sure that he wrote perhaps double that amount as he would not divulge this information..
Yet all we have is this small book of his non-fiction. Articles, Interviews, Introductions, containing his thoughts on his books, his books that were made into movies, and other writers books.
He was a three-time Edgar Award winner, and In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America named Mr. Westlake a "Grand Master".
There is some good reading here.
Sadly Mr. Westlake died December 31, 2008, leaving a huge hole in our reading lives.
His website can be found here:
http://www.donaldwestlake.com/
Yet all we have is this small book of his non-fiction. Articles, Interviews, Introductions, containing his thoughts on his books, his books that were made into movies, and other writers books.
He was a three-time Edgar Award winner, and In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America named Mr. Westlake a "Grand Master".
There is some good reading here.
Sadly Mr. Westlake died December 31, 2008, leaving a huge hole in our reading lives.
His website can be found here:
http://www.donaldwestlake.com/
October 23, 2014
The reviews I have seen of The Getaway Car tend to overpraise it, as the reviewers’ (understandable) love of Westlake the Fiction Writer tends to cloud their perceptions of Westlake the Nonfiction Writer. As a fiction writer, Westlake was a genius, no doubt about it. As a nonfiction writer, Westlake was at least competent, but he never really tried to be more than that. As editor Levi Stahl notes, Westlake wrote so little nonfiction that Stahl, had he chosen, could have collected all of it in a volume. Instead, Stahl decided to pick and choose, and it’s a decidedly mixed bag (which suggests that Stahl was right not to simply collect all of it). Perhaps the most disappointing item is the roundtable discussion among Donald E. Westlake and his pseudonyms Tucker Coe, Timothy J. Culver, and Richard Stark—what seems like a brilliant idea in abstract quickly turns into a lame joke. As Stahl is quick to note in his introduction, this is really a collection for hardcore Westlake fans only. If you haven’t read much Westlake, don’t read The Getaway Car. First read at least the Parker novels, the Dortmunder novels, and The Ax. (And even if you’ve read all those, beware—spoilers abound!) Once you have immersed yourself in the Westlake canon, you will find The Getaway Car to be very, very interesting. Not great, but very, very interesting.
March 24, 2015
What a pleasure. The first half of this collection includes an overview of crime fiction that I'm sure I'll go back to over the years. It's just the thing I've been looking for to better understand the genre's distinctions, major figures and general appeal, which has proved, frankly, somewhat mysterious to me as I've gravitated toward this type of writing in recent years.
I'm grateful for this collection, and for the additional reading it's certain to spur in years to come.
I'm grateful for this collection, and for the additional reading it's certain to spur in years to come.
May 4, 2017
It's Donald Westlake. What more needs be said?
The author is revealed in his own words, through his own eyes, in all his humor and wisdom. A pleasure and privilege to read.
The author is revealed in his own words, through his own eyes, in all his humor and wisdom. A pleasure and privilege to read.
February 5, 2022
This could be looked at as a 'dedicated' book. That is, a book for people who have read Donald Westlake and only them. That, however, would be a waste. Inside these pages is a delightful array of material gleaned from Westlakes's decades of writing Forwards, letter's and Introductions. His insights on writing, on various authors; his critical way of looking at movies and the business of writing; and his general outlook on life all are worthy of attention. Reading his work is an exercise in restraining one's self from laughing too much, for Westlake is a wit. If one has not read Thuber or Benchley, for example, such a person might do well to start here and gain inspiration. Those familiar with the mentioned icons will find further enjoyment with Mr. Westlake. And after sampling his wit and intelligence hee, moving on to his fiction comes naturally. I would especially recommend "Kahawa".
Recommended.
Recommended.
March 11, 2018
A treasure trove. Westlake is unparalleled in crime fiction— prolific in his output, proud to produce trifles and larks, but totally serious about both his characters and his craft. Contained herein are some illuminating fragments from a never-finished memoir; reflections on genre and craft that have ballooned my to-read list with about a zillion crime titles; dry and witty correspondences; and, best of all, a valiant defense of the humble semicolon. Don’t make this the first Westlake you read. But do read it.
May 20, 2018
If you enjoy reading Donald E. Westlake's books -- it's his Parker novels written under the name Richard Stark that I particularly enjoy -- you'll find some interesting reading here among the scraps of newspaper articles, letters, etc., that the editor has chosen to include. Westlake comes across as, and/or makes an effort to come across as, a fairly normal schmo who happens to be a writer and thinks there's a distinction worth making between people who write for a living and people who just write. We can certainly allow him that conceit.
February 1, 2026
My pal, Dennis gave me a heads up on The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany, University of Chicago Press, 2014, edited by Levi Stahl, foreword by Lawrence Block, and available for cheap on ebook. A compendium of stuff Donald Westlake wrote, his introductions to other’s works, some critical reviews, and his many opinions and insights into the job of being a professional writer. While the book towards the end, ran a bit out of steam, overall: a great, funny, and heartfelt read of and by a true master of the crime fiction genre. An inside look into the game and life of a professional writer.
I took a ton of highlights— visible, but many truncated… https://www.goodreads.com/notes/23221...
Below, I will share with you some of my favorites.
His pal, Larry Block writes the foreword. “It has been my delight to count as friends a couple of people who’ve never written a bad sentence, a clumsy paragraph, or a dull page. Evan Hunter was one. Donald E. Westlake was another.” Westlake was a writer who used humor frequently and was tremendously funny. Block makes the distinction though to the editor’s reference to Westlake’s jokes. As follows-“I’m to take issue with anything, it’s with a word he uses. Jokes. Levi describes these selections as being replete with jokes… a joke generally starts with a guy walking into a bar. Or two guys, or even three. This is a joke: A Frenchman, a German, and a Jew walk into a bar. The Frenchman says, “I am tired and thirsty. I must have wine!” The German says, “I am tired and thirsty. I must have beer!” The Jew says, “I am tired and thirsty. I must have diabetes.” There. That’s a joke, — Don was a wonderfully witty man, a fellow of infinite jest, and he took pains to make what he wrote amusing.” Lawrence Block Greenwich Village
LIVING WITH A MYSTERY WRITER, BY ABBY ADAMS, 1977. “Living with one man is difficult enough; living with a group can be nerve-wracking. I have lived with the consortium which calls itself Donald Westlake for five years now, when I get up in the morning, which of the mob I’ll have my coffee with. Donald E. Westlake is the most fun, and happily we see more of him than any of the others.” [Westlake & his pen names] “His taste in humor is catholic, embracing brows low, middle and high, from Volpone to Laurel and Hardy. — a simplicity and naivete about life that is disarming, especially if you don’t know about the Stark and Coe personae lurking in the background. —He dresses simply, wearing the same clothes year after year —I cut his hair, but he does his own mending and sews on his own buttons. (Mine, too.) really is happiest leading a quiet life and being able to get on with his own work in peace. However, (“I’m sick of working one day in a row,” he sometimes says.) — children. Westlake has four, by various spouses, and I have three. (“I have branches in all principal cities,” he is wont to say) and mine living with me in New York City—he ups and gathers everybody, all to live in London for a year. — Donald E. Westlake is sex-crazed, but I’m not going to talk about that. Tucker Coe is the gloomy one, almost worse to have around the house than Richard Stark. Timothy Culver is the professional—hack, if you prefer. He will write anything for anybody just as long as the typewriter keys keep flying. If he doesn’t have any actual work to do, he will write letters; and if you’ve ever received one, you’ll know they’re just as well-written as his books. Well-typed, too. — Stark has no pity for anyone. Stark is capable of not talking to anyone for days, or, worse yet, of not talking to one particular person for days while still seeming cheerful and friendly with everyone else. Parker, when things aren’t going well, can sit alone in a dark room for hours or days without moving? Stark doesn’t do this—that would be too unnerving—but he can play solitaire for hours on end. Stark is a loner— Not the easiest man to live with, but fortunately I seldom have to.”
January 29, 2001, following the publication of Flashfire, the nineteenth Parker novel.—Ed. “I’ve just completed another few month being Richard Stark. —these days it is doubly pleasant for me to visit with Stark, because for twenty-three years he wouldn’t answer my calls. The relationship between a writer and his pseudonym is a complex one, and never more so than when the alter ego refuses to appear. I became Richard Stark in the first place, forty years ago, I was turning out far too much work to ship to the publishers under just one name. I thought it a good idea to offer brand-name definition. Westlake does this, Stark does that. —1962 to 1974, Stark did a whole bunch of—sixteen novels about a coldblooded thief named Parker and four novels about an associate of Parker’s named Grofield. —Stark was better known and better paid than Westlake— in 1974, Richard Stark just up and disappeared. —In the most basic way, writers are defined not by the stories they tell, or their politics, or their gender, or their race, but by the words they use. Writing begins with language— Language creates the writer’s attitude toward the particular story he’s decided to tell. But more than that, language is a part of the creation of the characters in the story, in the setting and in the sense of movement. — In Flashfire, the Richard Stark novel just recently published, he writes, “Parker looked at the money, and it wasn’t enough.” — Donald Westlake wrote, “John Dortmunder and a failed enterprise always recognized one another.” — Parker answers the phone, “Yes.” — after fifteen years I did come to the reluctant conclusion that he was as gone as last year’s snow. Then an odd thing happened. — writing the film adaptation of Jim Thompson’s Grifters, and the director, Stephen Frears, insisted he wanted Richard Stark to write—and sign—the screenplay. I finally pointed out that Richard Stark wasn’t a member of the Writer’s Guild, and I wasn’t about to let him scab. — prepared to accept the second-best, so I went ahead and wrote the script. Or did I? Thompson was very much more like Stark than like Westlake, and so was the script. —Richard Stark was back. I sensibly enough called that book Comeback, and it was followed by Backflash and now Flashfire. (The Stark book he and I just completed, to be published next year, is called Firebreak. A subtle pattern begins to emerge.)
Did that screenwriting job wake Stark from his slumbers? Did he actually write that script —I don’t really know how I could answer that — Such confusion is rare, however. For instance, this piece is clearly, uh, written by, uh . . .”
SO TELL ME ABOUT THIS JOB WE’RE GONNA PULL -On Genre. The Hardboiled Dicks -a talk at the Smithsonian Institution on May 13, 1982.—Ed. “hardboiled, to mean an unsentimental person, began as World War I slang — tough drill sergeants who pounded all those citizens into citizen-soldiers.
—The term dick, in this context—and I shall consider no other context—is a little older. —it came from Canada, it came from the underworld… an arbitrary shortening of the word detective. — dick came across the border from Canada with the cases of hooch when Prohinotion started in 1919. —Prohibition -organizing crime, in addition to giving criminal gangs a vast new source of wealth, in addition to making the corruption of policemen and politicians and other authority figures absolutely inevitable —the First World War and Prohibition combined to create the atmosphere— transmogrified into something new that would reflect the new reality —should itself combine words from the war and the bootleggers. Hardboiled dicks. — on come the hardboiled dicks, and everything goes out the window. —The first hardboiled dicks seems to have been —a fellow named Race Williams, created by a writer named Carroll John Daly. —by his first appearance in Black Mask magazine he had the genre and the tone down pat. —Dashiell Hammett, a vet with tuberculosis—what they called in those unsentimental days a lunger—had also been a private detective with the Pinkertons. — improved on Carroll John Daly in several ways: first, he didn’t try so hard to be a tough guy, and second, he didn’t apologize. He also added irony to the genre, which kept it nicely oiled —a Hammett Black Mask story called “The Gatewood Caper,” —the irony, the social and class attitudes, and the lack of sentiment all stand out —Dashiell Hammett: “He told his stories with a new kind of compulsion and authenticity.” Marshall McLuhan, who said a lot of foolish things, sometimes said interesting things as well, said was that it is impossible to describe an environment if you are in it. Environments can only be described from the outside. —Coming back to Earth, I would like to spend a moment comparing the hardboiled detective story with the Western. The Western described the frontier to the stay-at-homes. The hardboiled detective story described the wreck of society to those who were living on the parts yet afloat. —The Western began as exaggerated reportage. The penny dreadfuls, the hyped-up exploits of people like Buffalo Bill and Wyatt Earp, were lies and nonsense and tall stories —The Western had strength, and survived, and endured, from time to time the very ritual itself leads to art. I think of Jack Schaefer’s novel Shane. —the Western and the hardboiled detective story are involved with the same ritual subject: the chivalrous man in an unchivalrous world. And this, of course, takes us directly to Raymond Chandler. —1936, Chandler began writing for Black Mask: a bookish, English-educated sort of mama’s boy whose raw material was not the truth but the first decade of the fiction. —“Him there they found squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,” was written by Milton, not Chandler. In fact, Paradise Lost is a very Raymond Chandler sort of title, isn’t it? —the third wave of hardboiled writers hit the beach in 1947. Kenneth Millar started then, and did three novels under his own name before inventing Lew Archer and Ross Macdonald in 1949. Mickey Spillane. I, the Jury. Mike Hammer. Some, like a lot of writers with Donald in their name—Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, Donald Hamilton—permitted emotion to leach through a stiff-upper-lip impersonal facade. Ross Macdonald was the shining light in the third, and if so, he’s also an excellent example of the dangers inherent in ritual. Somewhere in the midpoint of his career, Macdonald wrote that book over and over again for about twenty years. It didn’t matter what anybody said. —he didn’t care—he just went on writing that goddam book. You talk about hardboiled! — From time to time, a very few writers have tried to avoid the ritual and use some sort of reality instead as the framework. —I think by far the best of these mutants is Joe Gores. —his non-series novel Interface (1974) stretches the genre about as far as anybody has done. — The private eye novel may have become very strait-jacketed by ritual, but it’s certainly not dead. The hardboiled dicks are still viable, and may yet produce a Shane. It came close with Joe Gore’s Interface.”
THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES, 2000. -Westlake’s introduction to that year’s installment of the annual series edited by his friend, poker buddy, and sometime publisher Otto Penzler.—Ed.
“ It has been said that jazz and the short story are the two American contributions to the world of art, and they do seem to have at least this one thing in common: both are engaged in by the practitioner primarily for the love of doing it. Both are exemplified by the extended riff on a clean and simple motif. What the novel is to the symphony, the short story is to jazz.”
THE OTHER GUYS IN THE STRING Peers, Favorites, and Influences LAWRENCE BLOCK: FIRST SIGHTING -this appreciation of one of his oldest friends for a special issue of Mystery Scene focused on Lawrence Block that was published in 1990.—Ed. “I first saw Larry Block in November of 1958. I was working as a fee reader for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, reading amateur manuscripts —at no time, either haired, partially haired nor unhaired, however he may wish to dress, does he look reputable. So this disreputable person, at that moment bearded—called to Henry Morrison “Is it too late to change the dedication on that book?” Henry gave Larry an exasperated look and said, “Yes. Why?” I’m not going with that girl anymore,” Larry said. —And yet, he went on smiling. (Over the years, mostly, he has continued to go on smiling.) —feeling the need for one or more cheerful persons in my life. I better get to know that guy, I told myself.”
ON PETER RABE “Peter Rabe wrote the best books with the worst titles of anybody I can think of. Murder Me for Nickels. Kill the Boss Goodbye. —Kill the Boss Goodbye was published by Gold Medal in August of 1956. It was the fifth Peter Rabe novel they’d published, the first having come out in May of 1955, just fifteen months before. That’s a heck of a pace, and Rabe didn’t stop there. In the five years between May 1955 and May 1960, he published sixteen novels with Gold Medal and two elsewhere. —That enjoyment in the doing of the job is very evident in Rabe’s best work. But it can’t sustain a career forever; the writing history of Peter Rabe is a not entirely happy one. — when he was on track, with his own distinctive style, his own cold clear eye unblinking, there wasn’t another writer in the world of the paperbacks who could touch him. Of those first eighteen novels, a full seven are first-rate, another three are excellent at least in part, and eight are ordinary mushy paperbacks — Benny Muscles In, which begins as though it’s going to be a rise-of-the-punk history, a Little Caesar … One month later, A Shroud for Jesso was published, in the second half of which Rabe finally came fully into his own. — A House in Naples was followed by Kill the Boss Goodbye, and that was the peak of Rabe’s first period, five books, each one better than the one before.” Then lost it, but. “With his twelfth book, Blood on the Desert, Rabe gets his second wind, goes for a complete change of pace, and produces his first fully satisfying work since Kill the Boss Goodbye. It’s a foreign intrigue tale set in the Tunisian desert, spy versus spy in a story filled with psychological nuance. The characters are alive and subtle, the story exciting, the setting very clearly realized. — With his twelfth book, Blood on the Desert, Rabe gets his second wind, goes for a complete change of pace, and produces his first fully satisfying work since Kill the Boss Goodbye. It’s a foreign intrigue tale set in the Tunisian desert, spy versus spy in a story filled with psychological nuance. The characters are alive and subtle, the story exciting, the setting very clearly realized. — published in May of 1960, Rabe’s sixteenth Gold Medal novel in exactly five years, was Murder Me for Nickels, yet another change of pace, absolutely unlike anything that he had done before. Murder Me for Nickels is as sprightly and glib as My Lovely Executioner was depressed and glum. —There was one more in 1962– The Box may be Rabe’s finest work, a novel of character and of place, and in it Rabe managed to use and integrate more of his skills and techniques than anywhere else. “This is a pink and gray town,” it begins, “which sits very small on the north edge of Africa. The coast is bone white and the sirocco comes through any time it wants to blow through. The town is dry with heat and sand.” But for Rabe, it was effectively the end. — Peter Rabe had a doctorate in psychology; when things went to hell on the writing front, it was possible for him to take what he calls a bread-and-butter job teaching undergraduate psychology in the University of California.”
INTRODUCTION TO CHARLES WILLEFORD’S THE WAY WE DIE NOW This essay was written for a new edition of Charles Willeford’s The Way We Die. “Charles Willeford wrote very good books for a very long time without anybody noticing. In 1974 one of his novels was made into the film Cockfighter, ... Willeford himself played the professional trainer of the fighting cocks, and was just as laconic an actor as he was a writer, and still nobody noticed. —I think I know where Hoke came from. I knew Willeford some in the last years of his life, and found him gentle and knowledgeable and absolutely secure in his personal. —Hoke Moseley is anything but secure, has come nowhere near fighting his way to the calm plateau Willeford had reached. So where did he come from? —I think Hoke came out of the same wilderness in which Willeford had labored so long. —he trained himself to know that the work was very important but at the same time it didn’t matter at all. And the extension from that was that all of life was very important but at the same time it didn’t matter at all. — Hoke is a good cop, or at least he tries to be a good cop, but in his Miami, one good cop is about as useful as one good paper towel in a hurricane. Hoke is constantly bested by people tougher and meaner than he is, he’s constantly lied to and betrayed, he’s constantly faced with the futility of what he’s doing, and yet he keeps moving doggedly forward, and he does bring off some modest—and very satisfying successes. —Willeford’s experience of his life had led him to a certain attitude, —ironic without meanness, comic but deeply caring, informed every book he ever wrote. Charles Willeford had finally found the key in which he could really sing. These last songs of his are wonderful: human, patient, funny, knowing, cool, and forgiving. I wish he were still singing.”
Ten Favorite Mystery Books: “The Hoke Mosely series by Charles Willeford, The Red Right Hand by Joel Townsley Rogers, Kill the Boss Goodbye by Peter Rabe, The Gravedigger/Coffin Ed series by Chester Himes, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, Interface by Joe Gores, The Eighth Circle by Stanley Elli, Sleep and His Brother by Peter Dickinson, and The Light of Day by Eric Ambler.”
I took a ton of highlights— visible, but many truncated… https://www.goodreads.com/notes/23221...
Below, I will share with you some of my favorites.
His pal, Larry Block writes the foreword. “It has been my delight to count as friends a couple of people who’ve never written a bad sentence, a clumsy paragraph, or a dull page. Evan Hunter was one. Donald E. Westlake was another.” Westlake was a writer who used humor frequently and was tremendously funny. Block makes the distinction though to the editor’s reference to Westlake’s jokes. As follows-“I’m to take issue with anything, it’s with a word he uses. Jokes. Levi describes these selections as being replete with jokes… a joke generally starts with a guy walking into a bar. Or two guys, or even three. This is a joke: A Frenchman, a German, and a Jew walk into a bar. The Frenchman says, “I am tired and thirsty. I must have wine!” The German says, “I am tired and thirsty. I must have beer!” The Jew says, “I am tired and thirsty. I must have diabetes.” There. That’s a joke, — Don was a wonderfully witty man, a fellow of infinite jest, and he took pains to make what he wrote amusing.” Lawrence Block Greenwich Village
LIVING WITH A MYSTERY WRITER, BY ABBY ADAMS, 1977. “Living with one man is difficult enough; living with a group can be nerve-wracking. I have lived with the consortium which calls itself Donald Westlake for five years now, when I get up in the morning, which of the mob I’ll have my coffee with. Donald E. Westlake is the most fun, and happily we see more of him than any of the others.” [Westlake & his pen names] “His taste in humor is catholic, embracing brows low, middle and high, from Volpone to Laurel and Hardy. — a simplicity and naivete about life that is disarming, especially if you don’t know about the Stark and Coe personae lurking in the background. —He dresses simply, wearing the same clothes year after year —I cut his hair, but he does his own mending and sews on his own buttons. (Mine, too.) really is happiest leading a quiet life and being able to get on with his own work in peace. However, (“I’m sick of working one day in a row,” he sometimes says.) — children. Westlake has four, by various spouses, and I have three. (“I have branches in all principal cities,” he is wont to say) and mine living with me in New York City—he ups and gathers everybody, all to live in London for a year. — Donald E. Westlake is sex-crazed, but I’m not going to talk about that. Tucker Coe is the gloomy one, almost worse to have around the house than Richard Stark. Timothy Culver is the professional—hack, if you prefer. He will write anything for anybody just as long as the typewriter keys keep flying. If he doesn’t have any actual work to do, he will write letters; and if you’ve ever received one, you’ll know they’re just as well-written as his books. Well-typed, too. — Stark has no pity for anyone. Stark is capable of not talking to anyone for days, or, worse yet, of not talking to one particular person for days while still seeming cheerful and friendly with everyone else. Parker, when things aren’t going well, can sit alone in a dark room for hours or days without moving? Stark doesn’t do this—that would be too unnerving—but he can play solitaire for hours on end. Stark is a loner— Not the easiest man to live with, but fortunately I seldom have to.”
January 29, 2001, following the publication of Flashfire, the nineteenth Parker novel.—Ed. “I’ve just completed another few month being Richard Stark. —these days it is doubly pleasant for me to visit with Stark, because for twenty-three years he wouldn’t answer my calls. The relationship between a writer and his pseudonym is a complex one, and never more so than when the alter ego refuses to appear. I became Richard Stark in the first place, forty years ago, I was turning out far too much work to ship to the publishers under just one name. I thought it a good idea to offer brand-name definition. Westlake does this, Stark does that. —1962 to 1974, Stark did a whole bunch of—sixteen novels about a coldblooded thief named Parker and four novels about an associate of Parker’s named Grofield. —Stark was better known and better paid than Westlake— in 1974, Richard Stark just up and disappeared. —In the most basic way, writers are defined not by the stories they tell, or their politics, or their gender, or their race, but by the words they use. Writing begins with language— Language creates the writer’s attitude toward the particular story he’s decided to tell. But more than that, language is a part of the creation of the characters in the story, in the setting and in the sense of movement. — In Flashfire, the Richard Stark novel just recently published, he writes, “Parker looked at the money, and it wasn’t enough.” — Donald Westlake wrote, “John Dortmunder and a failed enterprise always recognized one another.” — Parker answers the phone, “Yes.” — after fifteen years I did come to the reluctant conclusion that he was as gone as last year’s snow. Then an odd thing happened. — writing the film adaptation of Jim Thompson’s Grifters, and the director, Stephen Frears, insisted he wanted Richard Stark to write—and sign—the screenplay. I finally pointed out that Richard Stark wasn’t a member of the Writer’s Guild, and I wasn’t about to let him scab. — prepared to accept the second-best, so I went ahead and wrote the script. Or did I? Thompson was very much more like Stark than like Westlake, and so was the script. —Richard Stark was back. I sensibly enough called that book Comeback, and it was followed by Backflash and now Flashfire. (The Stark book he and I just completed, to be published next year, is called Firebreak. A subtle pattern begins to emerge.)
Did that screenwriting job wake Stark from his slumbers? Did he actually write that script —I don’t really know how I could answer that — Such confusion is rare, however. For instance, this piece is clearly, uh, written by, uh . . .”
SO TELL ME ABOUT THIS JOB WE’RE GONNA PULL -On Genre. The Hardboiled Dicks -a talk at the Smithsonian Institution on May 13, 1982.—Ed. “hardboiled, to mean an unsentimental person, began as World War I slang — tough drill sergeants who pounded all those citizens into citizen-soldiers.
—The term dick, in this context—and I shall consider no other context—is a little older. —it came from Canada, it came from the underworld… an arbitrary shortening of the word detective. — dick came across the border from Canada with the cases of hooch when Prohinotion started in 1919. —Prohibition -organizing crime, in addition to giving criminal gangs a vast new source of wealth, in addition to making the corruption of policemen and politicians and other authority figures absolutely inevitable —the First World War and Prohibition combined to create the atmosphere— transmogrified into something new that would reflect the new reality —should itself combine words from the war and the bootleggers. Hardboiled dicks. — on come the hardboiled dicks, and everything goes out the window. —The first hardboiled dicks seems to have been —a fellow named Race Williams, created by a writer named Carroll John Daly. —by his first appearance in Black Mask magazine he had the genre and the tone down pat. —Dashiell Hammett, a vet with tuberculosis—what they called in those unsentimental days a lunger—had also been a private detective with the Pinkertons. — improved on Carroll John Daly in several ways: first, he didn’t try so hard to be a tough guy, and second, he didn’t apologize. He also added irony to the genre, which kept it nicely oiled —a Hammett Black Mask story called “The Gatewood Caper,” —the irony, the social and class attitudes, and the lack of sentiment all stand out —Dashiell Hammett: “He told his stories with a new kind of compulsion and authenticity.” Marshall McLuhan, who said a lot of foolish things, sometimes said interesting things as well, said was that it is impossible to describe an environment if you are in it. Environments can only be described from the outside. —Coming back to Earth, I would like to spend a moment comparing the hardboiled detective story with the Western. The Western described the frontier to the stay-at-homes. The hardboiled detective story described the wreck of society to those who were living on the parts yet afloat. —The Western began as exaggerated reportage. The penny dreadfuls, the hyped-up exploits of people like Buffalo Bill and Wyatt Earp, were lies and nonsense and tall stories —The Western had strength, and survived, and endured, from time to time the very ritual itself leads to art. I think of Jack Schaefer’s novel Shane. —the Western and the hardboiled detective story are involved with the same ritual subject: the chivalrous man in an unchivalrous world. And this, of course, takes us directly to Raymond Chandler. —1936, Chandler began writing for Black Mask: a bookish, English-educated sort of mama’s boy whose raw material was not the truth but the first decade of the fiction. —“Him there they found squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,” was written by Milton, not Chandler. In fact, Paradise Lost is a very Raymond Chandler sort of title, isn’t it? —the third wave of hardboiled writers hit the beach in 1947. Kenneth Millar started then, and did three novels under his own name before inventing Lew Archer and Ross Macdonald in 1949. Mickey Spillane. I, the Jury. Mike Hammer. Some, like a lot of writers with Donald in their name—Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, Donald Hamilton—permitted emotion to leach through a stiff-upper-lip impersonal facade. Ross Macdonald was the shining light in the third, and if so, he’s also an excellent example of the dangers inherent in ritual. Somewhere in the midpoint of his career, Macdonald wrote that book over and over again for about twenty years. It didn’t matter what anybody said. —he didn’t care—he just went on writing that goddam book. You talk about hardboiled! — From time to time, a very few writers have tried to avoid the ritual and use some sort of reality instead as the framework. —I think by far the best of these mutants is Joe Gores. —his non-series novel Interface (1974) stretches the genre about as far as anybody has done. — The private eye novel may have become very strait-jacketed by ritual, but it’s certainly not dead. The hardboiled dicks are still viable, and may yet produce a Shane. It came close with Joe Gore’s Interface.”
THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES, 2000. -Westlake’s introduction to that year’s installment of the annual series edited by his friend, poker buddy, and sometime publisher Otto Penzler.—Ed.
“ It has been said that jazz and the short story are the two American contributions to the world of art, and they do seem to have at least this one thing in common: both are engaged in by the practitioner primarily for the love of doing it. Both are exemplified by the extended riff on a clean and simple motif. What the novel is to the symphony, the short story is to jazz.”
THE OTHER GUYS IN THE STRING Peers, Favorites, and Influences LAWRENCE BLOCK: FIRST SIGHTING -this appreciation of one of his oldest friends for a special issue of Mystery Scene focused on Lawrence Block that was published in 1990.—Ed. “I first saw Larry Block in November of 1958. I was working as a fee reader for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, reading amateur manuscripts —at no time, either haired, partially haired nor unhaired, however he may wish to dress, does he look reputable. So this disreputable person, at that moment bearded—called to Henry Morrison “Is it too late to change the dedication on that book?” Henry gave Larry an exasperated look and said, “Yes. Why?” I’m not going with that girl anymore,” Larry said. —And yet, he went on smiling. (Over the years, mostly, he has continued to go on smiling.) —feeling the need for one or more cheerful persons in my life. I better get to know that guy, I told myself.”
ON PETER RABE “Peter Rabe wrote the best books with the worst titles of anybody I can think of. Murder Me for Nickels. Kill the Boss Goodbye. —Kill the Boss Goodbye was published by Gold Medal in August of 1956. It was the fifth Peter Rabe novel they’d published, the first having come out in May of 1955, just fifteen months before. That’s a heck of a pace, and Rabe didn’t stop there. In the five years between May 1955 and May 1960, he published sixteen novels with Gold Medal and two elsewhere. —That enjoyment in the doing of the job is very evident in Rabe’s best work. But it can’t sustain a career forever; the writing history of Peter Rabe is a not entirely happy one. — when he was on track, with his own distinctive style, his own cold clear eye unblinking, there wasn’t another writer in the world of the paperbacks who could touch him. Of those first eighteen novels, a full seven are first-rate, another three are excellent at least in part, and eight are ordinary mushy paperbacks — Benny Muscles In, which begins as though it’s going to be a rise-of-the-punk history, a Little Caesar … One month later, A Shroud for Jesso was published, in the second half of which Rabe finally came fully into his own. — A House in Naples was followed by Kill the Boss Goodbye, and that was the peak of Rabe’s first period, five books, each one better than the one before.” Then lost it, but. “With his twelfth book, Blood on the Desert, Rabe gets his second wind, goes for a complete change of pace, and produces his first fully satisfying work since Kill the Boss Goodbye. It’s a foreign intrigue tale set in the Tunisian desert, spy versus spy in a story filled with psychological nuance. The characters are alive and subtle, the story exciting, the setting very clearly realized. — With his twelfth book, Blood on the Desert, Rabe gets his second wind, goes for a complete change of pace, and produces his first fully satisfying work since Kill the Boss Goodbye. It’s a foreign intrigue tale set in the Tunisian desert, spy versus spy in a story filled with psychological nuance. The characters are alive and subtle, the story exciting, the setting very clearly realized. — published in May of 1960, Rabe’s sixteenth Gold Medal novel in exactly five years, was Murder Me for Nickels, yet another change of pace, absolutely unlike anything that he had done before. Murder Me for Nickels is as sprightly and glib as My Lovely Executioner was depressed and glum. —There was one more in 1962– The Box may be Rabe’s finest work, a novel of character and of place, and in it Rabe managed to use and integrate more of his skills and techniques than anywhere else. “This is a pink and gray town,” it begins, “which sits very small on the north edge of Africa. The coast is bone white and the sirocco comes through any time it wants to blow through. The town is dry with heat and sand.” But for Rabe, it was effectively the end. — Peter Rabe had a doctorate in psychology; when things went to hell on the writing front, it was possible for him to take what he calls a bread-and-butter job teaching undergraduate psychology in the University of California.”
INTRODUCTION TO CHARLES WILLEFORD’S THE WAY WE DIE NOW This essay was written for a new edition of Charles Willeford’s The Way We Die. “Charles Willeford wrote very good books for a very long time without anybody noticing. In 1974 one of his novels was made into the film Cockfighter, ... Willeford himself played the professional trainer of the fighting cocks, and was just as laconic an actor as he was a writer, and still nobody noticed. —I think I know where Hoke came from. I knew Willeford some in the last years of his life, and found him gentle and knowledgeable and absolutely secure in his personal. —Hoke Moseley is anything but secure, has come nowhere near fighting his way to the calm plateau Willeford had reached. So where did he come from? —I think Hoke came out of the same wilderness in which Willeford had labored so long. —he trained himself to know that the work was very important but at the same time it didn’t matter at all. And the extension from that was that all of life was very important but at the same time it didn’t matter at all. — Hoke is a good cop, or at least he tries to be a good cop, but in his Miami, one good cop is about as useful as one good paper towel in a hurricane. Hoke is constantly bested by people tougher and meaner than he is, he’s constantly lied to and betrayed, he’s constantly faced with the futility of what he’s doing, and yet he keeps moving doggedly forward, and he does bring off some modest—and very satisfying successes. —Willeford’s experience of his life had led him to a certain attitude, —ironic without meanness, comic but deeply caring, informed every book he ever wrote. Charles Willeford had finally found the key in which he could really sing. These last songs of his are wonderful: human, patient, funny, knowing, cool, and forgiving. I wish he were still singing.”
Ten Favorite Mystery Books: “The Hoke Mosely series by Charles Willeford, The Red Right Hand by Joel Townsley Rogers, Kill the Boss Goodbye by Peter Rabe, The Gravedigger/Coffin Ed series by Chester Himes, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, Interface by Joe Gores, The Eighth Circle by Stanley Elli, Sleep and His Brother by Peter Dickinson, and The Light of Day by Eric Ambler.”
February 16, 2015
My New York Times review:
THE GETAWAY CAR
A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany
Edited by Levi Stahl
University of Chicago, paper, $18.
“This is a book for fans,” Stahl insists in his introduction — the sole misstep of his whole enterprise, because in fact this is a book for everyone, anyone who likes mystery novels or good writing or wit and passion and intelligence, regardless of their source.
Westlake was a pro. He published more than a hundred books under several names, and while many were beloved, and several became movies, none were the kind of blockbusters that keep money falling from the sky indefinitely. As a result, some of the essays here focus on the ways of a writer who works hard for a living — the state of his desk, what magazines pay. Stahl has assembled these pieces both lovingly and wisely, keeping things brisk, interspersing funny bits of ephemera (including Westlake’s recipe for tuna casserole, demand for which was, he reports, “scant and relenting”). But there’s serious work too, including a stunningly insightful history of hardboiled fiction.
Westlake was unlucky enough to live in the valley between two periods of glamour for the genre storyteller, the punchy heyday of Sam Spade and the supercollider ascendancy of Quentin Tarantino. In either of those times, larger cultural forces might have picked him up. As it is, he had a hardworking, prolific, quietish career. His understanding of that — “The work was very important but at the same time it didn’t matter at all,” he writes in an impeccable short essay about Charles Willeford — adds gravity to a collection one hopes will find him new readers.
THE GETAWAY CAR
A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany
Edited by Levi Stahl
University of Chicago, paper, $18.
“This is a book for fans,” Stahl insists in his introduction — the sole misstep of his whole enterprise, because in fact this is a book for everyone, anyone who likes mystery novels or good writing or wit and passion and intelligence, regardless of their source.
Westlake was a pro. He published more than a hundred books under several names, and while many were beloved, and several became movies, none were the kind of blockbusters that keep money falling from the sky indefinitely. As a result, some of the essays here focus on the ways of a writer who works hard for a living — the state of his desk, what magazines pay. Stahl has assembled these pieces both lovingly and wisely, keeping things brisk, interspersing funny bits of ephemera (including Westlake’s recipe for tuna casserole, demand for which was, he reports, “scant and relenting”). But there’s serious work too, including a stunningly insightful history of hardboiled fiction.
Westlake was unlucky enough to live in the valley between two periods of glamour for the genre storyteller, the punchy heyday of Sam Spade and the supercollider ascendancy of Quentin Tarantino. In either of those times, larger cultural forces might have picked him up. As it is, he had a hardworking, prolific, quietish career. His understanding of that — “The work was very important but at the same time it didn’t matter at all,” he writes in an impeccable short essay about Charles Willeford — adds gravity to a collection one hopes will find him new readers.
November 25, 2015
Very well-edited collection of Westlake's letters,essays, speeches and whatnot. Nonfiction wasn't really his thing, so there's nothing terrifically vital here. It's all amusing, though. I really like his "interview" with all of his pseudonyms, and his speech about hardboiled mysteries, and the one where he differentiates being an "author" from being a writer. And if you like hatchet jobs, the one where he dismisses all sixties science fiction short story writers, magazines, editors, and publishers is kind of breathtaking.
April 28, 2018
This wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be. Some of it—especially the stuff on writing—was very good. But there was a fair amount that didn’t add to the collection. So my recommendation would be to read the sections that interest you and leave the rest. (The first half of the book was the strongest, in my opinion.) A disclaimer: I’ve never read any of Westlake’s fiction; I probably would have liked this better if I had. But any book that shows what the mind of a writer is like is fascinating to me, and this book is no exception.
January 8, 2015
A nifty collection of the little bits of non-fiction that any pro inevitably cranks out: the book reviews, the anthology introductions, the odd article, whatever keeps the checks coming. Although certainly for fans only, the contents are interesting and liberally laced with Westlakian wit. The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is that his fiction is even better.
March 22, 2019
Growing up, I read a fair amount of Westlake, and always loved his humorous capers and his hapless crook Dortmunder. One of the librarians in Pocomoke recommended him to me when I was outgrowing the paltry young adult section, and I really enjoyed his writing style, cleverness, and wit. I haven't read much - any - of his in a long time, but I ran across this book of his essays and letters and decided to give it a try. There's a lot here - it's a bit dense, really. But I thoroughly enjoyed an early piece, a talk he gave at the Smithsonian in the 70s about the history and future of the detective story. He made some interesting parallels to the history of the western. And it's interesting to think of how the mystery genre has grown and changed since the 70s. I'd have loved to read an update of that particular essay. I also enjoyed his disparagement of the science fiction genre.
This has made me want to pick up some of his books - sadly the library does not have the first Dortmuder book available, and I like to start series at the beginning, though I think it doesn't much matter. Westlake was really from an older time- started in the 50s, heyday in the 70s, but a resurgence in the early 00s. He was successful, but not to the point of being a bestseller until somehow, improbably, I think, a few of his later books really hit (especially from his Stark line, which was harder hitting, and which I never read). Several of his books were also made into middling movies (none of which I've ever heard of, to be honest). Clearly a smart, funny, erudite guy - hoping I can make some room in my to-read lists for a refresh.
This has made me want to pick up some of his books - sadly the library does not have the first Dortmuder book available, and I like to start series at the beginning, though I think it doesn't much matter. Westlake was really from an older time- started in the 50s, heyday in the 70s, but a resurgence in the early 00s. He was successful, but not to the point of being a bestseller until somehow, improbably, I think, a few of his later books really hit (especially from his Stark line, which was harder hitting, and which I never read). Several of his books were also made into middling movies (none of which I've ever heard of, to be honest). Clearly a smart, funny, erudite guy - hoping I can make some room in my to-read lists for a refresh.
December 8, 2024
Donald Westlake was an extremely prolific author, who wrote under multiple pseudonyms. As Richard Stark, for example, he wrote a series about the hard-boiled criminal Parker. He wrote SF, porn, detective fiction and occasionally short stories and non-fiction.He also wrote movie scripts, or adapted novels for the movies. Several of his own works have been released as films.
Westlake wrote to pay the bills - he was a true professional writer. When he determined that SF was not a paying proposition, he stopped writing it. If editors demanded changes to his story, he complied and got paid.
This book contains essays, reviews, correspondence and bits and pieces written by Westlake at various times, and collated after his death. His witty style makes for an entertaining read. For myself, sometimes that sort of thing can grate on me, if it's overdone. To be honest, I don't think I've read any of his many books. I decided early on that the hard-boiled style was not my favourite - perhaps that had something to do with it. Admittedly, not all of his books came into that category. Another reason is the lack of availability of his works in the library. I must try to access a few of them from somewhere.
It's easy to see that Westlake was a master of his craft. He analyses the detective genre in a self-deprecating way - not to mention some of his own works.
I found the book interesting and entertaining, yet I left it unfinished for several weeks. The library wanted it back, so I hurried through.
Readers will get a professional analysis of what it means to be an author, and "tricks" needed to succeed, i.e. get paid regularly and sufficiently.
I'll call it a rating 4.0.
Westlake wrote to pay the bills - he was a true professional writer. When he determined that SF was not a paying proposition, he stopped writing it. If editors demanded changes to his story, he complied and got paid.
This book contains essays, reviews, correspondence and bits and pieces written by Westlake at various times, and collated after his death. His witty style makes for an entertaining read. For myself, sometimes that sort of thing can grate on me, if it's overdone. To be honest, I don't think I've read any of his many books. I decided early on that the hard-boiled style was not my favourite - perhaps that had something to do with it. Admittedly, not all of his books came into that category. Another reason is the lack of availability of his works in the library. I must try to access a few of them from somewhere.
It's easy to see that Westlake was a master of his craft. He analyses the detective genre in a self-deprecating way - not to mention some of his own works.
I found the book interesting and entertaining, yet I left it unfinished for several weeks. The library wanted it back, so I hurried through.
Readers will get a professional analysis of what it means to be an author, and "tricks" needed to succeed, i.e. get paid regularly and sufficiently.
I'll call it a rating 4.0.
June 26, 2022
Comic caper novelist (and deadly serious crime novelist when he wrote as Richard Stark) Donald Westlake died in 2008 at age 75, and those of us who enjoyed (and miss) his work may also enjoy this accurately described book of "Nonfiction Miscellany." They are mostly short pieces, ranging from 2 to maybe 7 pages, consisting of letters to friends (and agents and admirers), introductions to the books of other writers and the like. For completists, there's nothing here for those not already Westlake fans. The book is full of the clever wit that endeared Westlake to fans, but there's no clever story (another Westlake staple), so it's at most a chance to learn what he thought about what he did for a living, and to spend some time visiting an old, funny friend. It's made me want to read some of Westlake's earlier work, and maybe to re-visit his crowning achievement, the Dortmunder series of ingeniously comic caper novels.
July 7, 2017
Miscellany of Westlake nonfiction spanning decades. A trifle, with some interesting bits, especially the essays where he dissects crime fiction, with recommendations of other writers. I found some folks I haven't read in there who I'm going to seek out. Some trenchant comments on the "Donalds:" John D. MacDonald, Ross Macdonald, etc.
Here's a list of novels he recommends:
The Hoke Mostly series by Willeford (excellent books, love them)
The Red Right Hand by Rogers
Kill the Boss Goodbye by Rabe (now on my Kindle)
The Gravedigger/Coffin Ed Series by Himes (need to reread some of these)
Interface by Gores (read it decades ago, loved it, time for a reread)
The Eighth Circle by Ellin
Sleep and His Brother by Dickinson (don't know, though have read him)
The Light of Day by Ambler
Here's a list of novels he recommends:
The Hoke Mostly series by Willeford (excellent books, love them)
The Red Right Hand by Rogers
Kill the Boss Goodbye by Rabe (now on my Kindle)
The Gravedigger/Coffin Ed Series by Himes (need to reread some of these)
Interface by Gores (read it decades ago, loved it, time for a reread)
The Eighth Circle by Ellin
Sleep and His Brother by Dickinson (don't know, though have read him)
The Light of Day by Ambler
May 23, 2020
This book was okay. It's clearly for Donald Westlake fans, which I am. This reminds me of a quote I heard somewhere that went something like "people think in an interview you should be witty and entertaining, like your books, but you can't compete with that because you're put your best material in the book."
As so it is with this book. The more interesting parts are the biographic parts. He received several awards and there are the transcripts from his speeches and while he clearly knows writing the speeches are kind of long and boring. There was some correspondence some interesting and some not. I would have appreciated more biographic parts.
So bottom line mildly interesting for Westlake fans, but not nearly as interesting as a reissue of one of his books.
As so it is with this book. The more interesting parts are the biographic parts. He received several awards and there are the transcripts from his speeches and while he clearly knows writing the speeches are kind of long and boring. There was some correspondence some interesting and some not. I would have appreciated more biographic parts.
So bottom line mildly interesting for Westlake fans, but not nearly as interesting as a reissue of one of his books.
April 24, 2023
I think you have to be a really big fan of Westlake to enjoy all of the material in this book. I'm a pretty big fan, so I enjoyed only most of it. The multiple introductions he wrote for other author's books were not my cup of tea at all. And most of his letters didn't do much either.
I think the most amazing page of this book is right at the beginning - the list of all of the books he wrote and all of the names he wrote them under! I mean, even with the small font they used, it's an amazing, overwhelming amount! I've read a lot of them, but it sure would be something to read them all!
I loved his ten most wanted books to read (even if there are only nine!) and the recipe for May's Famous Tuna Casserole that is mentioned so often in the Dortmunder series! And I think that Mr. Westlake would have been a heck of a man to know in person. I guess I have to settle for knowing him through his books, and that's a compromise I look forward to!
I think the most amazing page of this book is right at the beginning - the list of all of the books he wrote and all of the names he wrote them under! I mean, even with the small font they used, it's an amazing, overwhelming amount! I've read a lot of them, but it sure would be something to read them all!
I loved his ten most wanted books to read (even if there are only nine!) and the recipe for May's Famous Tuna Casserole that is mentioned so often in the Dortmunder series! And I think that Mr. Westlake would have been a heck of a man to know in person. I guess I have to settle for knowing him through his books, and that's a compromise I look forward to!
March 22, 2019
Donald Westlake's writing was always fun. This book shows his humor and skill in writing even when just sending routine correspondence. Loved this book.
August 22, 2019
A great compendium of random writings for one of the greatest of all time. Enjoyed a peek behind the curtains, but mostly it just made me want to read or re-read all of his fiction again.
September 4, 2022
There's a lot of great stuff in here, and a lot of stuff that's so-so. Skim it, unless you're a diehard Westlake fan.
April 19, 2023
Simply terrific. For a writer there is gold-dust spread throughout. You'll have to get your sieve out and work a little loose earth out of the way, but boy is it worth it.
January 22, 2026
This guy was a storytelling machine, constantly coming up with plots. As a child, he’d lie in bed coming up with narratives. I do too, but fall asleep because my tales, unlike his, are dull.
December 10, 2014
I heartily echo the advice from the Editor's Introduction:
"If this is the first book by Donald E. Westlake you've ever held in your hands, stop right here. Put it down and walk away…straight to the crime section of your bookstore, where I'd suggest you start with The Hunter, the first book in his classic series about Parker, the heister's heister; or The Hot Rock, the first misadventure of hapless thief John Dortmunder and his crew; or The Ax, Westlake's painfully acute dissection-through-crime of contemporary economic pain; or the brilliantly funny stand-alone Somebody Owes Me Money, whose opening line -- 'I bet none of it would have happened if I wasn't so eloquent' --tells you all you need to know about the voice of its put-upon cabbie narrator. When you run through those, and the couple dozen more they'll lead you to, we'll gladly welcome you back here."
In the past 10-15 years, Westlake became my favorite writer. (Note that he considered himself a writer and not an author.) I'm 50+ books into his work, so I pass the Editor's test.
What can I say? There are some books that feel like they are written for you. This is one for me. It's a peek into the words of Donald Westlake when he wasn't making up the stories. I appreciated some pieces more than others, but all felt essential because they provide a glimpse of Westlake and his work.
Will you love this book as much as me? Maybe not…unless you also feel like this book was put together for you to enjoy.
The only other quick note to add is that reading Westlake's writing about other writers made me add about 20-30 books that I should have read or didn't know about. I love it when a book leads you to discover another one. I still have more Westlake to discover, but now I have many others to visit.
Thanks to Levi Stahl for his work combing through Westlake's writing. There are some truly great bits strewn throughout.
"If this is the first book by Donald E. Westlake you've ever held in your hands, stop right here. Put it down and walk away…straight to the crime section of your bookstore, where I'd suggest you start with The Hunter, the first book in his classic series about Parker, the heister's heister; or The Hot Rock, the first misadventure of hapless thief John Dortmunder and his crew; or The Ax, Westlake's painfully acute dissection-through-crime of contemporary economic pain; or the brilliantly funny stand-alone Somebody Owes Me Money, whose opening line -- 'I bet none of it would have happened if I wasn't so eloquent' --tells you all you need to know about the voice of its put-upon cabbie narrator. When you run through those, and the couple dozen more they'll lead you to, we'll gladly welcome you back here."
In the past 10-15 years, Westlake became my favorite writer. (Note that he considered himself a writer and not an author.) I'm 50+ books into his work, so I pass the Editor's test.
What can I say? There are some books that feel like they are written for you. This is one for me. It's a peek into the words of Donald Westlake when he wasn't making up the stories. I appreciated some pieces more than others, but all felt essential because they provide a glimpse of Westlake and his work.
Will you love this book as much as me? Maybe not…unless you also feel like this book was put together for you to enjoy.
The only other quick note to add is that reading Westlake's writing about other writers made me add about 20-30 books that I should have read or didn't know about. I love it when a book leads you to discover another one. I still have more Westlake to discover, but now I have many others to visit.
Thanks to Levi Stahl for his work combing through Westlake's writing. There are some truly great bits strewn throughout.
December 29, 2014
This is a hotchpotch of Westlake's essays, interviews, reviews, introductions to compilations, assorted letters, and even a list he kept of possible future titles for novels (divided neatly into separate “Crime” and “Comic Crime” columns). Some are already fairly famous, or at least notorious, like his bridge-burning “Why I no longer write sci-fi” screed, or even Dortmunder's tuna casserole recipe, but others have never before appeared in print.
As Lawrence Block points out in his introduction, the thing that shines through most clearly is Westlake's all-encompassing wit. There are many hilarious moments here: the story of how, when he first started writing, he knew he needed right-justified margins, but couldn't work out how to get those on his type-writer, other than by carefully constructing lines of exactly the right length, is delightful, as is the shaggy-dog story of how Jimmy The Kid (featuring “an invented novel from a pseudonymous author appearing in a real novel by the same author based on a producer’s idea to use a real-life case in which actual criminals performed a crime based on The Snatch, by Lionel White”) came to be.
The highlights for me were the pieces (including a round-table discussion between Westlake and three (of his many) pseudonyms) where he lays out the history of the crime/mystery/detective novel (including several digressions on what to even call the genre), and particularly how the changes in style reflect those of American society at large post-WWI, post-WWII, and post-Vietnam. A solid two-thirds of the book, however, will really only be of interest to Westlake aficionados.
As Lawrence Block points out in his introduction, the thing that shines through most clearly is Westlake's all-encompassing wit. There are many hilarious moments here: the story of how, when he first started writing, he knew he needed right-justified margins, but couldn't work out how to get those on his type-writer, other than by carefully constructing lines of exactly the right length, is delightful, as is the shaggy-dog story of how Jimmy The Kid (featuring “an invented novel from a pseudonymous author appearing in a real novel by the same author based on a producer’s idea to use a real-life case in which actual criminals performed a crime based on The Snatch, by Lionel White”) came to be.
The highlights for me were the pieces (including a round-table discussion between Westlake and three (of his many) pseudonyms) where he lays out the history of the crime/mystery/detective novel (including several digressions on what to even call the genre), and particularly how the changes in style reflect those of American society at large post-WWI, post-WWII, and post-Vietnam. A solid two-thirds of the book, however, will really only be of interest to Westlake aficionados.
March 1, 2015
The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Miscellany (2014)
Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008)
Nonfiction: essays, introductions, letters, lists (223 pp.)
Pieces from 1960 to 2005; US, with one piece about returning from overseas’ service
Analysis of and commentary on the crime genre
Semi-Random Semi-Representative Sample:
The first writers tended to be veterans of the recent war, middle-class men themselves with some physical labor in their background […]
I would like to suggest that in popular fiction, when a new genre moves out of its youth, the vitality necessary to its survival comes in fact from ritual […]
After Hammett and the first-wave writers, Chandler and the second-wave writers also were their characters, but not in the same way. Reality was replaced by fiction, experience replaced by ritual, storytelling replaced by literature.
Bookstore Cat Sample:
[N]ot one person who really matters at the publishing house will read the novel first, if at all. What is read is the sales figures from that writer’s previous novels. The self-fulfilling prophecy is the only business strategy known to these MBA geniuses, who were never fired for the novels they didn’t publish.
Reminds me of: Other introductions and essays mixed with a bit of Lem and Borges, since they come to us here in a disembodied state.
Why I picked it up: review of recent crime books in NYTimes made me suggest it to the nonfiction book club.
Good: smart and funny. Leads to further inspiration and gives reading lists (unfortunately of many items that are out of print).
Bad: Occasionally repetitive. But that’s forgivable, given the format.
Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008)
Nonfiction: essays, introductions, letters, lists (223 pp.)
Pieces from 1960 to 2005; US, with one piece about returning from overseas’ service
Analysis of and commentary on the crime genre
Semi-Random Semi-Representative Sample:
The first writers tended to be veterans of the recent war, middle-class men themselves with some physical labor in their background […]
I would like to suggest that in popular fiction, when a new genre moves out of its youth, the vitality necessary to its survival comes in fact from ritual […]
After Hammett and the first-wave writers, Chandler and the second-wave writers also were their characters, but not in the same way. Reality was replaced by fiction, experience replaced by ritual, storytelling replaced by literature.
Bookstore Cat Sample:
[N]ot one person who really matters at the publishing house will read the novel first, if at all. What is read is the sales figures from that writer’s previous novels. The self-fulfilling prophecy is the only business strategy known to these MBA geniuses, who were never fired for the novels they didn’t publish.
Reminds me of: Other introductions and essays mixed with a bit of Lem and Borges, since they come to us here in a disembodied state.
Why I picked it up: review of recent crime books in NYTimes made me suggest it to the nonfiction book club.
Good: smart and funny. Leads to further inspiration and gives reading lists (unfortunately of many items that are out of print).
Bad: Occasionally repetitive. But that’s forgivable, given the format.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews