Get Shorty

Having heard that the book of Get Shorty is brilliant, I’ve never seen the film.  When both versions are highly acclaimed I’ve always wanted to read the book first.  I’m not sure if it has to do with books being my first love, or the fact that books are so much more open to personal interpretation.  The reason that I can’t stand the Harry Potter films is because they’re nothing like I imagined the books when reading them.  So, coming into Get Shorty, I didn’t know that much about it.  The only real experience I have of Elmore Leonard is the fact that I’ve seen Jackie Brown (adapted from Leonard’s Rum Punch) several times.  And knowing what Tarantino’s like, I assume that a hell of a lot of that’s not in the book.

As I’ve said before with the New York Trilogy, I love the hard-boiled style of noir and that’s rampant here.  Leonard was frequently compared to authors like Raymond Chandler who define the genre.  But this isn’t just a detective story.  I can see what would draw someone like Quentin Tarantino to his work.  Get Shorty is post-modern and knowing, I can only assume the film is even more so.  It’s a story about getting a film made and, although the main cast are fictional, it’s jam packed with references to real people and places that still stand up twenty-odd years on.  Despite it being published in 1990, it’s painfully eighties Hollywood, but in a sense that it now feels almost like a period text.  At this point, it’s basically retro.

I was also surprised by the character Karen Flores.  Crime books learn towards misogyny and, at first, she does appear to be there solely as a sex object.  She’s a failed actress famous for her breast and her screams, ex-wife of the actor that the main characters are actually interested in and initially kind of stupid.  But she is the one who succeeds.  When they take a script to the studio, they pass on it but give Karen a job because she is Hollywood-smart.  She isn’t as naïve as she seems and has learnt from her years in the industry.  The studio executive is another hard as nails woman who has the job she does because she’s the most competent person for it.  It’s wonderful that in a book largely about men threatening one another there are these strong female characters, even if they’re only peripheral ones.

Again, and I know I sound like a snob when I say this, it’s nice read something that’s not too dense.  Leonard once said something like, ‘If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.’  And stylised as Get Shorty, it’s not a dense book.  There’s no real poetry to it; it’s just a good story told well.  This makes it a terrific page-turner.  Basically, this is a good genre book in one of my favourite genres.  Added to all of this there’s a sprinkling of Hollywood glitz and sleaze.  And who doesn’t love that?

Up next time, Hallucinating Foucault; debut novel of Patricia Duncker.  She used to teach at UEA (my old stomping ground).  Not to be biased, but I like it already.