Elmore Leonard: New Orleans' Native Son Who Became the Dickens of Detroit

New Orleans' Native Son Who Became the Dickens of Detroit

Elmore John Leonard Jr. was born on October 11, 1925, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father worked as a site locator for General Motors, and the family moved frequently during Elmore's childhood before settling in Detroit in 1934. Leonard was nine years old when he left New Orleans, and Detroit would become the city that defined his literary career. But the Crescent City got there first.

Leonard once said he would have written about Buffalo if he'd grown up there. That may be true. But there's something about a writer who spent his first years in New Orleans — a city built on storytelling, crime, and characters who talk fast and think faster — and then went on to become the greatest crime fiction writer in American history. The raw material was there from the beginning.

A Lifetime of Perfect Dialogue

Leonard started with Westerns in the 1950s and then pivoted to crime fiction, where he found his genius. His rules for writing — including the famous "try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip" — produced lean, propulsive novels with dialogue so sharp it could cut glass. Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Rum Punch (adapted as Jackie Brown by Quentin Tarantino), Justified — the list of classic adaptations from his work is unmatched.

He was called the Dickens of Detroit, and the comparison was earned. His novels sold tens of millions of copies. His characters — con men, loan sharks, U.S. Marshals, and women who were smarter than every man in the room — populated a moral universe that was messy, funny, and recognizably human.

Elmore Leonard died on August 20, 2013, at eighty-seven. He was a New Orleans baby who became Detroit's greatest storyteller. The two cities share more than people think: music, food, grit, and a deep appreciation for people who refuse to play by the rules.