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September 21, 2007
Murder, Ink: Pelecanos, Price, and Lehane
My wife had popped in the second disc of Season Three, and I heard myself say, "Wow, this is really well-written." Plot, character, and setting have always been The Wire's strong suits, but in this particular episode, the dialogue and symbolism attained a nearly Milchean richness. I jogged back to see who was credited with the teleplay, and found that it was... Dennis Lehane, of Mystic River fame.
Turns out Richard Price, author of Blood Brothers and George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener are also sharing writing duties. I have a lot of respect for these three, for whom crime fiction is art, as well as entertainment. Price's Clockers may not be Faulkner, but the depth of its reportage on the drug trade elevate it far above the kind of by-the-numbers pulp that fills the airport racks. "I really admired that book," David Simon, creator of The Wire, told an interviewer. "It unearthed an entire world that had never been contemplated by the literary world. 'Clockers' paved the way for a lot of the split point of view that The Wire relies upon."
And given the solitary nature of the novelist's art, the idea of these three, bound by geography and class sympathies as well as by trade, trading ideas over pizza and beer... well, it's enough to make a fellow writer jealous. Simon joked with a co-producer, "I got Pelecanos, Price and Lehane. Who do you want next year, Philip Roth?"
Stranger things have happened. Quick - someone call Elmore Leonard's agent.
- Garth Risk Hallberg @ 6:45 AM ~
comments: 1 ~ Links to this post
Edan @ September 21, 2007 12:47 PMSponsor:
