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Lot #535
Elmore Leonard

"I have to write the way I do because I like it, I like the sound and the people. Even though the finished book is never as good as I expect it to be"

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Estimate: $200+
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Description

"I have to write the way I do because I like it, I like the sound and the people. Even though the finished book is never as good as I expect it to be"

TLS signed “Dutch,” one page, 8.5 x 11, personal letterhead, September 31, 1981. Letter to "Swanie," his agent H. N. Swanson, in full: "The rejection letters from Jay Weston and Pakula's office reaffirm what I've begun to realize. I've been getting by, making film sales on the strength of style and characterization in lieu of a good story. I thought Split Images would sell right away because City Primeval did. But now I think we were lucky to have made that sale. Very lucky, in fact. For without Clement Mansell, the bad guy, what have you got? Some zippy dialogue but not much in the way of a story. I saw Jay Weston's Night of the Juggler and it's an excellent police story, very gritty, realistic, but a failure at the boxoffice. Which I assume is the one he referred to in his letter. My former editor at Bantam once said my work falls somewhere in between pure genre and literature, sort of in a no man's land, and that's why they had trouble marketing it. I have to write the way I do because I like it, I like the sound and the people. Even though the finished book is never as good as I expect it to be. So what I'm going to do now is plot better stories. I'll show 'em." In fine condition.

Auction Info

  • Auction Title: Fine Autographs and Artifacts
  • Dates: #593 - Ended October 07, 2020





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