I Just Finished Reading "Cooler Than Cool, the Life and Work of Elmore Leonard"

It was a very moving and instructional experience. Not an easy book. I guess I'm a bit fanatical about word choices and all that crap, and this book gets at best a C+ when it comes to that, which is disturbing, considering that the subject was a fanatic about language use. The multiple layers of editors are to blame, for certain. Truly astounding to me. I'd swear every third or fourth page had some obvious faceplant, almost like your local sports columns. It should not be that Hard!

But the research and attention to detail, while compromised at times by carelessness in keeping the current book and the multiple fictional and perhaps film candidates clearly in mind, is admirable.

I had read and enjoyed a couple early "Dutch" books in the crime vein before realizing that my mother was a huge fan. That was a shock. While she was not at all a prude, having asked me to give her a dope lesson at one point, this just didn't seem like her venue.

But it turned out it was, and kudos to Mom. She was much more attuned to this superstar's gifts than I was.

"Dutch" died at 87 of a major stroke.