credit: Delacorte Press
Mr. Leonard had a phrase he used a lot, "if it seems like writing, I rewrite it." My personal theory is he came up with that while writing this book, Unknown Man #89. The man began to play low jazz here, shifting into a steady gear and focusing on his characters and language unlike he has before while the plot becomes more "what are they going to do" rather than "What's going to happen next?"
A newsletter for the Banned Library’s birthday! The Banned Library opened many years ago. Some say it sprang forth fully formed from the head of a god, but those people are confusing the library with the Greek goddess Athena. No, we were spilled from a drunken bottle of whiskey onto a bar and soaked up by a rag and onto the internet in September 2010. Long shot from where we are now. Staff didn't even have smartphones when we started.
Credit: first eiditon, Delacorte Press
Swag, published in 1976 by Delacorte Press, begins the modern version of Leonard's bibliography. Before now, he'd written westerns and a few crime novels (I've been reading them the last few years). Swag has the same dark story of criminals doing crime and the police trying to catch them, but adds in a ton more levity and fun to the criminal acts. It's a fast read at around 225-250 pages depending on the edition, but it may take longer as everyone around you will ask what you are laughing at.
Credit: Marvel comics
Fall is approaching! Children are getting back in their forced labor camps, the squirrels are digging up the yard, and the leaves are waiting to fall off the trees, turn brown, and decay into the soil. It is a time for the end of thriving life and the slow decline into the heartbreak of frozen grief. May August end and September birth a new, colder hell.
