SO LONG, SUGHRUE:

James Crumley Checks Out (Robert Ferrigno, 9/18/08)

The only time I met Jim Crumley was when I was touring for one of my crime thrillers, The Wake Up or Scavenger Hunt. I had a Halloween reading at Murder by the Book, a great independent bookstore in Houston, and the manager, David Thompson, had called a week earlier and asked if I minded if they made it a joint appearance, me and Crumley. I told him I felt like Tiny Tim being asked to do a concert appearance with Pavoroti.

When I arrive at the store that night, the place is packed. Overflow packed. Tall Texans standing in the doorway of the restroom packed. They were all there, of course, to see Jim. I looked around, ready to bolt, when this burly guy walks over to me, puts an arm around my shoulder, tells me his name is Jim Crumley and he's a huge fan of my work. My voice cracked when I thanked him. The readings go well. Crumley announces he won't sign any of his books unless the patron also has bought one of mine. I sign books until my hand gets tired.

Afterwards, we go out to a bar, drink beer and solve the mysteries of the universe. It was the best Halloween I ever had.

MORE:
James Crumley dies at 68; author of gritty but poetic crime novels (Dennis McLellan, 9/20/08, Los Angeles Times)

A self-described "bastard child of Raymond Chandler," Crumley wrote seven crime novels featuring two detectives who were set not in the mean streets of L.A. but in what he called "my twisted highways in the mountain West."

Crumley's private eyes, C.W. Sughrue and Milo Milodragovitch, were, as Dallas Morning News writer Jerome Weeks wrote in 2001, "sullen, violent men whose drug use and carnal antics would stagger a rhino."

To tell his two detectives apart, Crumley suggested remembering that "Milo's first impulse is to help you; Sughrue's is to shoot you in the foot."

U.S. crime novelist James Crumley dies in Montana at age of 68 (Canadian Press, 9/18/08)
-ESSAY: The Last Gentleman: A friend and student remembers Richard Yates. (James Crumley, Boston Review)
-INTERVIEW: JAMES CRUMLEY: THE RIGHT MADNESS (Interview by Craig McDonald, Hard Luck Stories)

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 18, 2008 4:38 PM