David Gordon: In Memory of Elmore Leonard

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

In Memory of Elmore Leonard

Here is a short essay I was asked to write in appreciation of Elmore Leonard, one of my lifelong heroes.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/21/elmore-leonard-thegoldstandardforhonestunfancywriting.html

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"Reading David Gordon is pure pleasure. He's one of the smartest, most stylish writers I've ever come across, a gifted storyteller whose work perfectly combines an incredibly sharp with moments of real transcendent beauty." – KAREN THOMPSON WALKER, author of The Age of Miracles

"MYSTERY GIRL is funnier, sadder, and smarter than seems mathematically possible: Dashiell Hammett divided by Don DeLillo, to the power of Dostoevsky – yet still pure David Gordon." RIVKA GALCHEN, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

When Sam Kornberg’s wife, Lala, walks out on him, he is an unemployed used bookstore clerk and failed experimental novelist with a broken heart. Desperate to win her back, he becomes Assistant Detective to the enigmatic Solar Lonsky, a private eye who might be an eccentric and morbid genius or just a morbidly obese madman. It’s a simple tail job, tracking a beautiful and mysterious lady around LA, but Sam soon finds himself helplessly falling for his quarry, and hopelessly entangled in a murder case, involving Satanists, succubi, underground filmmakers, Hollywood bigshots, Mexican shootouts, video-store geekery and sexy dopplegangers from beyond the grave, as well as the risks of hardcore reading and the mournful death of the novel…or maybe just the decline of Western Civilization.

Mystery Girl is a thriller about the dangers of marriage, and a detective story about the unsolvable mysteries of love, art and other people.

Available from Simon & Schuster

A DARK AND STYLISH PAGE-TURNER FROM A BOLD NEW VOICE IN FICTION

Harry Bloch is a struggling writer who pumps out pulpy serial novels—from vampire books to detective stories—under various pseudonyms. But his life begins to imitate his fiction when he agrees to ghostwrite the memoir of Darian Clay, New York City’s infamous Photo Killer. Soon, three young women turn up dead, each one murdered in the Photo Killer’s gruesome signature style, and Harry must play detective in a real life murder plot as he struggles to avoid becoming the killer’s next victim.

Witty, irreverent and original, The Serialist is a love letter to books—from poetry to pornography—and proof that truth really can be stranger than fiction.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“The Serialist is an entertainingly wicked debut. A literary pulp fiction that flays and skewers post-Millennial New York and along the way reinvents the American detective novel. David Gordon has arrived, brash, irreverent and indecently talented.”

—Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill

“David Gordon has gathered up our cultural trash and made of it something magnificent. In the tradition of Bolano, Chandler, and lots of dime novels that most of us pretend to know nothing about, The Serialist makes high art out of serial murders, pornography, soup dumplings and pulp fiction. I adore this book!”

—Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

“The Serialist is a book about many things but above all it’s about storytelling— why and how we tell stories to stay not only sane but also alive. David Gordon writes with style, bite, suspense, humor, and heart. Remember his name. The Serialist is great fun to read and the beginning of a noteworthy career.”

—David Ebershoff, author of The 19th Wife and The Danish Girl

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

In Memory of Elmore Leonard

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