"HE WAS, IN EVERY WAY, A ROCK STAR TO ME!": COOLER THAN COOL-THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELMORE LEONARD'S C.M. KUSHINS

C.M. Kushins is mainly known for writing about music. His biographies about Warren Zevon and John Bonham are much lauded. However, to help celebrate the centennial of his birth, he has written Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard, an engaging and detailed look at the author's life. I felt fortunate to ask Kushins some questions about the writer who influenced me.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY Does Elmore Leonard share anything about the musicians you've written biographies of?

 C.M. KUSHINS: Well, it wasn’t intentional, but I found that I had, inadvertently, written three consecutive books about functioning alcoholics—all of whom conquered their respective addictions with varied success; Elmore was the most successful and had an entire second half of his life and career with complete creative and personal clarity—which is quite rare for anyone in the arts. Elmore also (at least in his later years) developed a pretty regimented creative process that “honed” the most creative aspects of writing into a daily schedule: the research, drafts, and final versions (hand-written at first, then typed carefully, a page at a time) sort of mimicked the way a musical artist would craft new material before entering the studio …. There is definitely some bleed-over with all the arts, and with Elmore it was no different. He was, in every way, a rock star to me!

S.M.: The subtitle is The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard. How did you approaching capturing the work?

C.M.K.: It’s funny, all three of the artists that I’ve written about swore up and down that their respective work wasn’t autobiographical—yet all three artists turned out uniquely personal and autobiographical work, whether intentional or not. For example, Warren Zevon—the subject of my first book—wrote songs that were either deeply-rooted in his own life, or were the products of his own current observations; perhaps John Bonham, a drummer, didn’t have the same opportunity to articulate that in his playing, but the evolution of his sound is certainly a display of his growth as an artist. With Elmore, his entire canon (over sixty years of incredible writing!), his stories always had a clandestine element of hiding his own friends’ names, personal beliefs, and creative experimentation into his stories—even if readers were unaware. One of the things I was hoping for in writing Elmore’s biography, is that readers will view the book as sort of “liner notes” to his full canon and will go back to the original books, then catch those nuanced autobiographical elements that they might have missed the first time around.

S.M.: I assume the difficult part about an artist's biography are the years before the work. How did you approach the first two or three chapters you have about Mr. Leonard?

 C.M.K.: In earlier instances, that was certainly the case; with Elmore, however, I was blessed to have two primary sources that both proved to be a wealth of information on his early years and childhood: his literary archive at the University of South Carolina (over one-hundred boxes of curated research, correspondence, and drafts of writing) and the assistance and blessing of his family—all five children, his grandchildren, and first wife, Beverly. Between those incredible sources, family history, Elmore’s military correspondence and records, and earliest attempts at writing were all available, and it displayed his lifelong ambition to hone his storytelling abilities.

S.M.: What do you think he carried over from his time in the westerns into his crime fiction?

C.M.K.: One of the misconceptions regarding Elmore’s work is that his transition from the genres of Westerns to “contemporary crime” was effortless; that wasn’t the case at all. In private, Elmore struggled to find his literary voice like all the rest of us, yet he was so gifted right out of the gate that you wouldn’t necessarily notice any “growing pains” in his early work. He admitted many times that he had chosen Westerns for two main reasons: he “liked” Westerns, and it was a pulp genre that, while somewhat “low-brow,” would pay him as he continued to learn his craft and become a better writer as he went along—he was very pragmatic about it all.  During the 1950s, even his first agent, Marguerite Harper, implored him to shift towards contemporary settings, as she and other literary figures saw the writing on the wall regarding readers’ interests. Elmore later revealed that he was intimidated to attempt writing in a new setting, as he would have had to abandon the formula that he’d crafted. (Let me elaborate: Elmore never wrote by formula, but he did trust his system for researching the Arizona territory and the lifestyles of the Indigenous nations that populated his early work; shifting to a new genre would have also dictated learning a whole new form of writing!) When he eventually did, it was slow-going, and he really came into his own with Fifty-Two Pickup in 1974—and by then, he’d mastered his new sound: very little exposition, a reliance on natural dialogue, and clipped scenes that move the story forward. But in answer to your question, Elmore carried over everything else that was universal: the confusion of dynamics between law enforcement and criminals, moral codes, and—as you would expect—fantastic prose that makes you want to keep reading.

S.M.: One of the surprises that came in my reading of the book, was his working in outlines while in almost every interview he often sounded like he made the story up as he went along. How much preplanning did you uncover?

 C.M.K.: I really appreciate this question! As a lifelong Elmore fanatic, I was just as surprised to discover his early dependency on outlining—which was something he famously eschewed in his later years … What I discovered was that Elmore, like most young writers, used outlines in his early work; I wouldn’t call them “training wheels,” but outlining is a basic fundamental for all new writers, whether they realize it or not. It appeared, however, that Elmore did do away with the practice (for a while, at least) following his first five Western novels, but began to outline his work again once he started working as a Hollywood screenwriter; many producers and studio heads required it, and he would get paid for every draft—so those detailed notes and outlines were very lucrative, as well. But from 1983 or so, however, Elmore really hit is stride and you see that his style no longer required such intensive preplanning. In fact, if you go back to his older interviews, it’s around that time that he claims his characters “write themselves”—so there was definitely a point where his confidence in characterization took over and the stories happened more organically.

S.M.: Hollywood seems like a mixed bag for him. I feel from reading your book, we may have gotten at least three more books from him, if he didn't chase disappointing or failed film projects, yet many adaptations in the nineties gave him a bigger profile. What do you think the overall effect it had on him as a writer?

 C.M.K.: Despite the “tongue-in-cheek” nature of his novel, Get Shorty, which many people have interpreted as a “revenge novel” for all the years of frustration that the Hollywood studio system had caused Elmore, he never really complained in the way you’d expect. In fact, he later claimed that Hollywood had “been good” to him. From the very beginning, Elmore had aspired for his writing to be adapted to film and television; aside from being a big “film buff” himself, his agent, Margurite Harper, even advised him that that was where the real money was for a writer. So, the aspiration as always there—and Elmore made it a point, even a “serious novelist,” to work within genres that had commercial potential. Only later, after the consecutive experiences of movie adaptations for Stick and the unproduced LaBrava, did Elmore ever comment that his time had been wasted. While film adaptation definitely added to Elmore’s profile as a household name, he was never one to struggle with “writer’s block” and somewhat resented the reputation that screenwriters had for being so low on the totem pole; as a novelist, every time a screenplay rewrite would be mandated, Elmore calculated how much time he was being pulled away from his real fiction—which is not something that film producers counted on. Elmore didn’t need the film assignments and, while he was always a true professional, he would often remind people that he had a book to finish—because he always did! Once he was in his sixties and retired from active screenwriting, I think he was happy to just focus on his fiction and have the luxury to sit back and enjoy what other, younger filmmakers where doing with his work.

S.M.: I loved the interactions he has with his two agents Marguerite Harper and H.N. Swanson. How did they play in his career?

 C.M.K.: Those were among my favorite letters to read! First of all, I adored learning about Marguerite Harper—a true unsung hero of pulp fiction history. I loved the very real image of his tough-as-nails older woman racing around New York City, matching wits with “the boys” of the literary establishment and working behind the scenes to help craft some of the best Western pulp fiction of the era—what an amazing woman! Harper actively scouted the pulps for new talent (she had no assistant and did all her internal office work and outreach on her own) and found Elmore after his very first publication in Argosy magazine. He signed with her and, if I can make a comparison, she was a bit like Brian Epstein to the Beatles—guiding and grooming Elmore for his future literary stardom. They tangled a bit in the correspondence—remember Elmore was still in his twenties—but her advice carried him all the way until her death and the completion of his first contemporary novel, The Big Bounce. In fact, she’s even the one who introduced Elmore to his next agent—the legendary power-broker, H.N. Swanson—and set Elmore on his path. Swanson was the one who then read The Big Bounce, called Elmore at home, and famous said, “Kiddo, I’m going to make you rich.” It took a few years, but both of Elmore’s agents came through on their promises—and he learned to trust them. 

S.M.: What aspects of Elmore Leonard did you get from his grandchildren that  differed from his children?

 C.M.K.: I really love this question—especially since I’m about the same age as Elmore’s grandchildren and had a blast chatting with them about their awareness of his work and career. While Elmore’s children remembered the nitty-gritty of his early years—the struggles, the hits and misses in Hollywood—Elmore’s grandchildren grew up with the knowledge that their grandfather (or, “Goppa,” as they warmly called him) was already a literary legend. I made it a point to ask each grandchild about their own awareness of Elmore, and it was fun and a bit striking to see how Elmore’s milestones meant something different to each of the kids. For example, one of Elmore’s first grandchildren, Shannon, shared with me amazing memories about going to her grandfather’s early book signing events and almost no one being there; Elmore signed a children’s book that, of course, he didn’t write, and handed it to young Shannon to “show what her grandfather did” for a living—so adorable and memorable to me. But then to go down the chronology of his grandchildren and, for example, Peter’s son, Tim, remembered Get Shorty the film being a smash hit in 1995, and all his high school buddies recognizing that it was based on his grandfather’s book; talk about “street cred.” Then, one of Elmore’s youngest grandchildren, Luke, told me that he was in class and the teacher announced that Hombre was going to be part of that semester’s literary curriculum—and then whole class turned to look at him! So, those memories definitely added a warmth and humanity to Elmore’s story—since he was so much more than just a literary legend.

S.M.: You mentioned on Jim Fusilli's Writers At Work podcast that you're working on your first crime novel. After Cooler Than Cool, what is the biggest takeaway you're applying from Elmore Leonard’s Life and Work?

 C.M.K.: Well, the reason I discovered Elmore when I was a kid was because I wanted to be a writer like him! Thanks to his incredible kindness to me when I was young, I was able to get into journalism and non-fiction—and always made an active attempt to use his lessons when I sit down to write; it’s not always easy, since the basics of nonfiction don’t always yield the devices of fiction, but I’ve always tried. However, after the deep dive (or “master class”) in studying Elmore’s work for this book, I think if I don’t take my shot at fiction now, I never will.

But I think that’s maybe the biggest takeaway from Elmore: write what you know, but keep learning so you know more to write about. And—this is really important—if you’re not having fun, do something else.