CELEBRATING OVER A HALF CENTURY OF GREAT WRITING- C.M.KUSHINS' COOLER THAN COOL: THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELMORE LEONARD

With the possible exception of Stephen King, Elmore Leonard became the most influential genre author of these overlapping centuries. Many aspiring writers are familiar with Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing as King's memoir/how-to On Writing (leave it to Leonard for brevity). His dialogue heavy, character based plotting, and cinematic momentum influenced those outside of westerns and crime fiction, as well as general fiction, film, song writing and other arts. The man has been due a in-depth biography and the rock star writer got biographer for John Bonham and Warren Zevon, C.M. Kushins. With access to notes, letters, children, grandchildren, colleagues, and an unfinished memoir, he serves fans Cooler Than Cool; The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard an insightful celebration of the man.

He depicts Leonard as a writer who developed his own individual voice as a writer while pursuing success in commercial fiction. Kushins often looks at it through the relationship with his agents, starting with Marguerite Harper who first took him on and advised he keep his day job in advertising when he experienced his first nibbles of success. When she retired, the legendary H.N. Swanson, who went back F. Scott Fitzgerald, helped him during his transition to the crime novels that put him on the bestseller list. Kushins paints a vivid picture of the different stratas of the fifties fiction market and Leonard's approach to it. He chooses to start with short western stories for the pulps and build his way up, so he could learn and track his progress as a writer while getting paid to do it. We get a thorough take on the genre transitions and how he always pushed himself in his craft.

The book represents Hollywood as an ironic sirens song. Leonard, a movie fan, spends years of his life chasing after screenwriting work in either original work or adaptations of his books. Getting both Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman to commit to projects that will greenlight them proves both frustrating and futile. Even when a film got made it often went against his wishes, like the adaption to Stick which led to his giving up on trying to get film work. Ironically, it also lead to his satire on the business, Get Shorty, that director Barry Sonnenfeld and Screenwriter Scott Frank successfully turned into the movie that kicked off a a number of good Elmore Leonard films and put even more attention to him and his books.

The most dramatic part of his personal life is depicted in his battle with alcoholism. As a functioning drinker in the days of the three martini lunch, it was a years before he actually realized he had a problem. This came to a head when he was hospitalized and diagnosed with a condition mostly found in Skid Row sterno drinkers. His novel Unknown Man #89, written during his first attempt to quit, becomes one of his most personal books in the way his protagonist, Jack Ryan, deals with the disease. We see how he finds more balance in his life when he finds his sobriety.

The biography often tracks his life through the relationship with his family. He had three wives, beginning with the picture of a postwar marriage to Beverly, that became a victim to his drinking and possibly his time to pursing his fiction career while still having a day job. Ironically, while he was working on his novel Fifty-Two Pickup about an industrialist blackmailed for an affair, he had one himself, with Joan Shepard, part of a couple he and Beverly were friends with. She became his second wife who Leonard credited for his sobriety and his stronger female characters, Quickly after her untimely death, he married his landscaper Christine that led to a divorce partially due to a drunk driving accident that killed her daughter. We also get to see Leonard through the eyes of his children and grandchildren that capture him as different points in his life. His personality truly comes out with the later generation.

However, the book never strays far from the writing. Kushins conveys his love for it as he focuses on his craftsman's approach to the art.I was surprised to discovered he pre-planned more than I thought. You get tips and advice beyond his ten rules.

C.M. Kushins gives us a dense and detailed look at at Elmore Leonard in Cooler Than Cool. Some chapters take an hour to read. It is an engaging and entertaining chronicle of his writing life. It made me look forward to re-reading his books with a new perspective and excited to pick up my pen.