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A review by ben_miller
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
4.0
Three disconnected thoughts on Get Shorty:
-It's a surprisingly experimental crime thriller, flirting with meta-fiction as it explores movie people who can't quite tell the difference between make-believe and reality. Everyone who comes into contact with Hollywood begins to experience this dissolving border between real and fake almost immediately - they start re-scripting the scenes of their life, imagining the different camera angles from which they could be captured, and are never sure if they're being themselves or playing a part. At one point four chapters go by, and a good deal of plot is developed, and you realize the characters have been sitting at the kitchen island the whole time.
-A good crime writer takes a bunch of cliches and makes them interesting again. Elmore Leonard is a very good crime writer. There's an airport locker in this novel for God's sake - nobody but drug dealers in books and movies ever use those things. I'm surprised there aren't federal agents watching all airport lockers at all times, just arresting anyone who opens them. (In this novel, actually, that's exactly what happens.)
-Conventional wisdom is that Elmore Leonard is really good at dialogue, and it's true. One of the reasons he's so good is that he never lets a character answer a mundane question. A chauffeur holding a name placard at the airport asks his client, "How was your flight?" 99/100 crime writers out have the client say, "Not bad," or "It was a flight, how do you think it was?" Leonard's guy says: "I hope you drive better than you fuckin spell." Genius.
-It's a surprisingly experimental crime thriller, flirting with meta-fiction as it explores movie people who can't quite tell the difference between make-believe and reality. Everyone who comes into contact with Hollywood begins to experience this dissolving border between real and fake almost immediately - they start re-scripting the scenes of their life, imagining the different camera angles from which they could be captured, and are never sure if they're being themselves or playing a part. At one point four chapters go by, and a good deal of plot is developed, and you realize the characters have been sitting at the kitchen island the whole time.
-A good crime writer takes a bunch of cliches and makes them interesting again. Elmore Leonard is a very good crime writer. There's an airport locker in this novel for God's sake - nobody but drug dealers in books and movies ever use those things. I'm surprised there aren't federal agents watching all airport lockers at all times, just arresting anyone who opens them. (In this novel, actually, that's exactly what happens.)
-Conventional wisdom is that Elmore Leonard is really good at dialogue, and it's true. One of the reasons he's so good is that he never lets a character answer a mundane question. A chauffeur holding a name placard at the airport asks his client, "How was your flight?" 99/100 crime writers out have the client say, "Not bad," or "It was a flight, how do you think it was?" Leonard's guy says: "I hope you drive better than you fuckin spell." Genius.