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Books
By George Pelecanos
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1.
Hell to Pay has had such a great critical reception and you've been
profiled in the NewYorker and CBS Sunday Morning. Do you feel like
you've finally conquered main-stream America?
GP: It was never my goal to be on the list or conquer anything.
From the beginning, my intention was to keep my head down and keep
working. With each book, I wanted to get better. Ten years from
now, I want to be better still. The model for me is Elmore Leonard.
He's written 37 good novels and at 76 he's still strong and in the
game. Most importantly, he's a gentleman. If I can achieve half
of what he has, I'll be satisfied. I know I'm going to keep at it.
I don't ever want to retire.
2. Your novels all take place in Washington
and the surrounding metro area. What makes DC such ripe fictional
terrain?
GP: Where do you start? D.C. residents pay taxes but have
no voting representation in the House or the Senate. The Feds control
the purse strings and use this city as a punching bag. Here, the
racial and class divide is more in-your-face than any area of the
country. The crime rate is high; the crime closure rate is low.
Every day children walk through gun-infested and drug-infested neighborhoods
to get to sub-par public schools in the capital city of one of the
richest nations on earth, and very few in power seem to care. The
resources are there to help them, but instead the money has been
squandered on tax rebates for the people who need it least, in an
effort to gain political currency. To ignore the plight of children
is both a damnable sin and a national disgrace. For a crime novelist,
there is no ground more fertile than Washington, D.C.
3.
To
what extent do you exploit actual personalities, events, and places
in your novels as opposed to the purely imaginary?
GP: The central ideas in my novels are frequently based on
either actual events or conditions. I use real locations whenever
possible and I'm very careful with the details. I want the books
to stand as record of this town.
4. You've dedicated your most recent novel Hell to Pay
to Dennis Ashton Jr., a handgun victim. Sadly, this happens every
day. Why did this case strike you so hard?
GP: Dennis Ashton, 7 years old, was sitting in a car with
an older man in the Benning Road parking lot of a fast food, fried
chicken restaurant on June 27, 1997. The older man was marked for
death in a street beef. Gunmen fired indiscriminately into the car,
and Ashton was killed. We read about murders here every day, but
when an innocent child is killed it rocks your world. Ashton's face
is now on the front of the ATF literature describing Operation Ceasefire,
complete with a toll free line to report illegal handguns. That
number is 1-800-ATF-GUNS.
5. In your most recent books especially,
you take a strong moral stance on contemporary issues plaguing Washington
(and other US cities). Do you see your role as author as an educational
one, rather than to be merely entertaining?
GP: I do want to entertain, but I also want to be a provocateur.
A book's not worth writing if it's not coming from a position of
passion. If I get under the reader's skin, then all the better.
6.
In your novels you engage all of the reader's senses, but music
seems paramount in your stories. Is there something in music, for
you, which resonates especially clearer than other senses?
GP: It's out there in the world all the time. Certainly it's
always running in my head. Music can describe character and illuminate
a character's worldview. Derek Strange's commitment to uplift within
the community is in synch with his musical preferences, which run
to early 70s funk and soul, the most beautiful, positive period
in American pop. Sergio Leone made operatic westerns; I'm attempting
to do the same kind of thing with my books.
7.
Critics have described you as a "literary" crime novelist.
Do you see yourself as a crime novelist or simply a writer addressing
social ills? Does it matter? Do you care?
GP: I'll leave this one to Raymond Chandler, who addressed
the issue of the "literature of expression" versus the
"literature of escape" in the following manner:
"Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality;
there are no dull subjects, only dull minds...all reading for pleasure
is escape, whether it be Greek, mathematics, astronomy, Benedetto
Croce, or The Diary of the Forgotten Man. To say otherwise is to
be an intellectual snob, and a juvenile at the art of living."
'Nuff said.
8.
You've long had a great following in Europe. Why do you think that
audience "got you" right away, while American audiences
are just now discovering you?
GP: In general, European journalists don't ghettoize writers
by genre. If the book is interesting, ambitious, and well-written
it gets attention. It helps when a writer takes on social issues,
as foreigners find our urban culture and its attendant problems
fascinating. Europeans talk and argue about books and writers on
the street; they don't seem concerned with sales figures or lists,
and they don't look to an Oprah to tell them what to read. But to
answer your question: why did I break out quicker in Europe than
in America? I like to think it was my swarthy good looks.
9. The New Yorker profile ended with
a plea to Hollywood to make your novels into films. Has anyone approached
you yet? Are there any details you can share?
GP: Let's just say that I've been there, and I'm going to
be more careful this time around. You hear that call and it's always
tempting. Maybe someone ought to lash me to the mast.
10. What are you working on now, and
when might we see it?
GP: My next novel, SOUL CIRCUS, will be published by Little,
Brown in March of 2003. I am currently writing an episode of a t.v.
series, "The Wire," that will debut on HBO this fall,
produced by David Simon of "Homicide: Life on the Streets"
fame. I recently completed a screenplay for HBO Films about a team
in the old American Basketball Association, and a movie I co-wrote,
PAID IN FULL, will be released by Dimension this year. I'm busy,
and that's great. I like to work.
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