Venn Diagram’s & Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain has the type of swagger I try to find in my closet every morning, but can’t. I’ve never read one of his books — stupid and shameful, I know. But I recently read two books that were recommended by him. I saw a video of him sharing a meal with some other hot shots in a busy restaurant. Mario Batali was there, yikes. The video was taken at least 10 years ago, before a lot of stuff happened. Anyways, someone asked Tony what his favorite books were, or what books have provided him the most inspiration in his own writing life. He mentioned a few, and I snatched the names of two and immediately looked them up on thriftbooks.com. Shoutout to thriftbooks.com — sponsor me?
The two titles:
Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing by Elmore Leonard and Illustrated by Joe Ciardiello
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins
Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing is a short instructional book with thick pages, big font, and goofy little sketches. In it, Elmore offers his cheeky and incredibly digestible 10 rules for writing good stuff. You can read it in about 5 minutes, a nice little dopamine kick for the reader who wants to be a writer. When I read it through for the first time I went right back to the beginning to start over. I won’t spell out the 10 rules, get the book yourself or I can loan it to you, but it’s a book I’ll keep within arms reach on my desk until my desk collapses or my hands fall off and I can’t write anymore.
I’ll give you the opening lines of the book. Elmore writes, “These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story.” Oh wow, show don’t tell. Thanks Elmore, anyone who ever took a creative writing class or seminar has heard this from their unpublished and smiling professor in between sips of tea. But I’ve never heard the method instructed so succinctly, and that’s why I only gave you the opening lines. Get the book and find out how he does this.
Elmore passed away in 2013, but it seems he hated bullshit, fluff, clutter, ego, and writers trying to be smarter than they are. There are loads of good nuggets in there. I’ve read it several times now and I have left every reading feeling humbled, but seriously inspired. If you write and want to write better, find a copy.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a crime novel written and first published in 1970 by George V. Higgins. His bonafides include work as an attorney, journalist, teacher, and a writer of novels. George must have just been a vacuum of information and a refined sieve of societal observations that really matter. Bourdain called it one of the best crime novels ever written, and other people seem to agree. Though I’m told that Higgins would not call himself a writer of crime novels. The crime novel is something I am not overly familiar with. And so I’ll agree with Higgins because I have a vision of the crime genre being a cheap genre. Book covers with too much color and silhouetted figures, or the customary raised and metallic letters of the title or author, yuck. I get turned off by my perception of the machine that cranks out large batch books no one’s ever heard of.
Whatever genre this book fits into, its style has been copied and brought into the mainstream by beloved shows and movies like The Sopranos and much of Martin Scorsese's catalog of movies. The story follows the fumbling exploits of a small-time Boston con-man, Eddie Coyle. It’s confusing if you don’t pay attention. Its narrator is sometimes omniscient and operates in the third person. Dialogue dominates the plot, and it works so well you’ll dream in the language of a Boston mobster. The plot moves quickly and takes you from parking lots to bars to bank vaults. Snapshots get laid out on the floor and the reader has to put them together as they try and make out what the characters look like and where they are headed.
Like anyone could and should do when they finish reading a good book, I went to the mighty internet to see what other people thought too.
The people love it. It just so happens that one of those people is Elmore Leonard. What do you know? Maybe Leonard was even inspired by it. Higgins follows many of Elmore’s rules, and I guess I’ll give a few hints here after all. Dialogue dominates, characters are described in sparse detail but their actions and habits shout their morals and ambition. This all helps the reader color between the foggy lines of plot. And, the various strands do come together in the end.
I didn’t see this before I read the book but in the customary section of books also written by Higgins, he’s got a nonfiction title called The Friends of Richard Nixon. One can only hope there is some juicy dialogue in there as well.
I am trying to resist putting this book on the top of my best (favorite) ever list. No, I’m not just trying to be like Tony Bourdain, I swear. We all go through phases.
These two books started a new literary Venn diagram for me. You know, books that have some big things in common, but not all big things. Maybe it was just cool I read two books recommended at the same time, and that the author of the one of those books had impressed and influenced a the other writer who wrote a book about his own rules for writing.
But, it wasn’t until I read just one more book that I knew the VD was bigger than I’d known. What would you do if the whole world started to burn?
