Remembering Elmore Leonard, a prolific Detroit storyteller

(This is part one of a two-part article on the legendary Elmore Leonard. Next week, I will interview his biographer.)

How cool is cool? Well, Detroit crime writer Elmore Leonard was “Cooler Than Cool,” according to biographer C.M. Kushins’ new book of the same name.

My good friend Dan Barber and I were fanboys of Leonard; before his death in 2013, we would travel to his public appearances and book readings. Leonard would draw hundreds of admiring fans to his book release parties, and although he was a man of few words, both in his writing and his talks, he was a wonderful storyteller.

My favorite memory of Leonard took place in a packed room at the Ann Arbor Public Library, where he was going through his usual pitch on writing and how he became an author. During the question-and-answer segment, one patron was droning on and on about literature when Leonard politely interrupted him and said something like, “Sir, do you have a question?” 

Photo by Anders Krusberg/Peabody Awards The late Detroit author Elmore Leonard received a Peabody Award in 2011 for his work as executive producer on the FX series “Justified,” based on his novella “Fire in the Hole.”

ALEX OLIVEIRA

Leonard and Barber, who died in 2020, were both smokers. Numerous times, I found myself following after them for a smoke break, where we would chat about cool things. Leonard would’ve been bored talking about his books. Most conversations lasted only a cigarette or two, but they were enlightening.

Some of the last conversations we had with Leonard were about creating a center for the study of the mystery genre at the Library of Michigan, with his body of work as the centerpiece. Leonard liked the idea a lot. I know he appreciated Barber’s encyclopedic knowledge of classic mysteries. Barber was one of three people I knew who had collected a first edition of every Edgar Allan Poe Award winner for best novel, a category that was established in 1954.

The idea germinated. Ultimately, working with a deputy state librarian, Leonard agreed to the idea of having the state library as a home for his vast literary legacy. He even signed an agreement for the collection of his manuscripts and other literary materials to be transferred to the library.

However, like Leonard’s novels, this story didn’t have a happy ending. Despite Leonard being at the height of his career, the paperwork languished on the desk of the then-state librarian, who, frankly, didn’t get it. Then Leonard died, and his family sold his papers to the University of South Carolina for a healthy sum.

USC is no slouch in the arena. Considered one of the foremost centers for research on crime fiction, it also holds the papers of George Higgins and James Ellroy. However, back in Michigan, those in the know were deeply disappointed since Leonard’s papers would’ve helped create a similar research center here.

When Barber died, his widow donated his complete run of Edgar-winning first editions to the Library of Michigan.

In his writing career, Leonard wrote 47 books, most of them fictional crime thrillers about “bad guys” doing stupid things. If you haven’t read his work, I’d start with “City Primeval,” which is set in Detroit. For an unusual introduction, I’d recommend “Three-Ten to Yuma,” one of the Western stories he penned.

Like many famous authors, Leonard wrote some of his earliest work while toiling as a copywriter for an advertising agency, Campbell Ewald. In 1956, he was featured in an advertisement for the agency, which ran in The New Yorker.

In 2014, Leonard’s family held an estate sale at his home in Birmingham, Michigan. A good friend, author and former Creem magazine editor Susan Whitall, had once exchanged books with Leonard. At the sale, she discovered her book “Fever: Little Willie John” on his bookshelf. She bought it back since it had a “From the Estate of Elmore Leonard” sticker on the inside. Now that is cool.