Excelling as a journalist for over 15 years, C.M. Kushins decided to start sharing his passion for writing through new forms of media. Kushins is the author of “Nothing’s Bad Luck”, the Warren Zevon biography, and the first biography of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, “Beast”. His most recent biography, “Cooler Than Cool”, shares the life of the infamous Elmore Leonard. Read the interview below to learn more about Leonard’s influence in Kushins’ life!
AC: You didn’t start out with biographies. After being a journalist for several years, what made you decide that writing biographies was a path you wanted to take? Are there any other forms of media that you are interested in exploring, or do you plan on continuing with biographies moving forward?
CK: I really like that question, since I use it to demonstrate that Elmore Leonard’s own rules on writing are adaptable to nearly every form of writing—they emphasize brevity, clarity and, most importantly, sound. I loved his books when I was a kid and wanted to write fiction, but ended up writing for a newspaper and then magazines, where most guidelines are counter to creative writing. But Elmore’s are concise enough (and, whether cited or not, are influenced by his early love of Ernest Hemingway) that they can word pretty well with journalism, especially with writers like Susan Sontag, Gay Talese, and Truman Capote—some of the “New Journalists” that I stayed interested in it. Pivoting from feature writing to biography happened by accident when I pitched a freelance article on my musical hero, Warren Zevon, to a magazine. To write it, I figured I’d need maybe three or four interviews with engineers or musicians who had worked with him; by the end of the week, when my inbox showed that all twelve I’d contacted for safety’s sake had enthusiastically agreed to share stories about working with Warren, I thought it might be my detour into writing a biography about him. Fortunately, that strategy worked and I started to really enjoy the merits of using my research and journalism skills in bringing artists I loved “to life” via the works and legacies they left behind.
At one time, I was very interested in documentary filmmaking but, to be honest, I’ve lost most interest in filmmaking itself. When I sit down to work on a biography, there’s something really appealing about conducting the research and the interviews myself, and that gives me an intimacy with the material to let it all “sink in”—and the time alone to consider what my subjects may have been going through in their own lives and how those situations came out in the work. I guess a lot of solitude is kind of needed, since I need to prepare for interviews and research, then really thinking about everything I’ve found on a given day. Plus, I like being alone when I write—which was Elmore’s greatest goal for much of his career.
I will add, though, that any time I worked on a film—usually back in college with friends—I had fun working on those, but the amount of effort for a collective product didn’t really gel with me. I like it better that, as an author, I own my own mistakes—and can control the structure of a book without an array of commenters second-guessing me. If I ever had any doubts or needed context regarding this book, it was a joy to be able to call Peter Leonard or his siblings and their children and just run my questions or theories past them in real-time. That right there was my kind of collaboration.
If I’m ever fortunate enough to see something of mine adapted, I promised myself a long time ago that I would take Elmore’s own stance on the finished outcome: the book is yours, but the film is the director’s and screenwriter’s … I may just stick to books—although, from working on Elmore’s life and style for so long, I admit that I’m working on my own first crime novel now—very much the historical fiction genre that he used with Cuba Libre, The Hot Kind, and Up in Honey’s Room.
AC: Many influential novelists and screenwriters contribute to the fantastic entertainment that our media provides, with a diverse range of backgrounds and influences. Why did you choose to share Elmore Leonard’s life from the vast selection of writers?
CK: Elmore Leonard was very special to me at a very young age. I felt slightly self-indulgent sharing the full story within his biography, but I thought it was important that readers and his long-time fans hear how he was so very kind to me and always seemed to want to encourage the next generations of writers. But aside from the fact that he’s been me personal hero since the age of eleven and he’d encouraged me to keep writing, once I had established myself as a biographer (after the first two books were published), my agent and close friend, William Clark, gave me the idea that Elmore should be my next subject—especially since I brought Elmore up in casual conversation all the time anyway! So, after I completed my second book, Beast: John Bonham and the Rise of Led Zeppelin, I contacted Elmore’s son, the wonderful novelist Peter Leonard, and asked him for a blurb. As I suspect, Peter and his siblings are all big classic rock fans and he not only gave me a generous blurb, but that book (and my own knowledge of Elmore’s canon) earned me the honor to taking on Elmore’s life story as my third project.
From an objective standpoint, however, I honestly think that Elmore’s life and career trajectory are a shining example of how any professional and functioning artist can both survive and thrive in a commercial market. While Elmore never compromised the quality of his prose style—and always made a lifelong effort to evolve and get better—he chose commercial and mainstream genres because it allowed him to raise a family and keep writing. To me, the idea that Elmore considered his craft a true art form, while also conducting himself as a one-man professional company, really makes him an ultimate uncompromising all-American writer who successfully demonstrated that you didn’t need to starve to help evolve your chosen art form. A lot of us can continue to learn from his example. I think in modern terms of all the amazing and unique artists I know who work in graphic design from nine-to-five, then go home and paint on canvas.
But with Elmore, however, there’s an incredible backdrop, as well; the very idea that his father worked for General Motors during the years of “Dust Bowl” bank robbers and legendary outlaws—which later led to Elmore’s own work as a copywriter for the automobile industry while writing about the settlement of the Old West. There’s just something so “all-American”, yet strangely universal and timeless in his story.
With that in mind, it felt great to write Elmore’s life and legacy, while also suspecting that fellow writers and artists would find a lot of inspiration in his story.
AC: During your author’s note, you talked about how you hoped this biography would help fellow writers “find the needed inspiration to write every day.” Would you say that Elmore Leonard acted as that inspiration for you? Were there ever times you struggled to find the motivation to write while working on this biography?
CK: Absolutely! Elmore’s been my creative “true north” since I was a pre-teen. Although I almost never dabble in the same genre that Elmore mastered, I think of him every single time I sit and read and re-read my work for editing purposes. Like an angel on my shoulder, I imagine his playful, yet ardent, voice reminding me to keep my exclamation points under control and that my narrative perspective must remain focused.
Although I’ve occasionally needed the proper inspiration when hitting a creative wall, I have to admit that three specific “mantras” keep me from succumbing to “writer’s block”—and I hope they help anyone who reads them! The late Norman Mailer (whose nonfiction is significantly more interesting to me than his novels) once wrote, “Journalism makes an opera singer of us all”—meaning, journalists and biographers don’t have to come up with characterization or plot, but have full-reign on how they tell the story, which is an antidote for “writer’s block.” But remember—that, in itself, is your large responsibility to the reader: you still have to entertain them while educating them on the subject. Then, there are two of Elmore’s own separate quotes: “Writer’s block only means you got up from your desk” and “”If it’s not fun, do something else.” If I combine those three concepts, I can remind myself what I should be focusing on, how I should be focusing on it, and why I wanted to tell the story at all.
But if I’m not enjoying it, I can sell cars.
AC: Valdez Is Coming received mixed responses, with people on opposite ends of the spectrum regarding the praise they felt the film deserved. Have any of your pieces of work ever garnered a wide array of responses? If so, how did it feel to see such differing beliefs in your work?
CK: Awesome reference, and I appreciate that! Valdez Is Coming was Elmore’s own favorite Western that he ever wrote—I think largely due to the subtextual Christian themes, plus the raw simplicity of a noble “revenge epic.” But again, the book got significantly better reviews than the film adaptation; it’s much purer to picture a character’s appearance in your mind’s eye than depend upon Hollywood to tell you which actor may or may not look like them. I suppose, although I’ve only published fiction, my second book, Beast: John Bonham and the Rise of Led Zeppelin, divided some opinions. Although I stand by the book, I have to admit, however, that that proved to be a unique situation where the age group that had grown up with Bonham’s music took my portrait of him very personally. I suppose if you’re a “baby boomer” and lost your virginity to “Stairway to Heaven,” it’s easy to question an author your kid’s age who’s chronicling the pros and cons of the artist’s life. But see, I didn’t take that personally, since the output of any given artist is supposed to become personal to each individual who enjoys it—even if that means a defense mechanism ticks in when someone else comments upon it.
If anything, I think it taught me that each individual reader already has a preconceived vision of the story in their mind, unless you tackle something that hasn’t been covered before, or you approach familiar material from a different angle.
AC: Leonard reflects on his time working with homicide cops and what resulted from his time with them. He said he “will always remember…a man giving his word to protect someone’s life, not as an official of the law or on a bible or in any other context than simply ‘as a man.'” Do you feel this experience helped Leonard dive into characters in a more personable manner? Do you think it played a big role as he continued with crime fiction?
CK: I do believe that Elmore’s time with the cops on Detroit’s Homicide Squad proved to be a bit of a creative “epoch” for him. Although he never suffered from “writer’s block,” I think that Elmore knew if he was growing weary of a given theme or style of story, so was his audience—and adjusted it accordingly. But with that specific quote, it’s important to remember that, although it is gender specific, many of the police officers that he hung with were women—as well as the female parole officers and U.S. marshals that he studied for both Maximum Bob and Out of Sight, respectively. As early as his most famous short story from the 1950s, “Three Ten to Yuma,” Elmore was already exploring the concept of personal moral codes and honor—not necessarily what it took to “be a man.” When it comes to the ideal Leonard “archetype” for heroism, it is almost always a loner who trusts their moral compass dictating right and wrong; while the character of Raylan Givens is, perhaps, the most recent “Leonard hero” to attract widespread fandom, the character of “Karen Sisco” came later—at least in print—and she was, sort of, Elmore’s perfect embodiment of heroism, intelligence, bravery, and sex appeal. Once Elmore began letting his characters “speak for themselves,” as he often put it, they became more realistic and truer to their own character. I think Elmore really learned to respect law enforcement—men and women—during his time with Seven Squad, and he learned a crucial lesson that stayed with him for the rest of his career: all characters—good and bad—have their own moral code that makes sense to them and, if they don’t, they’re headed for a downfall.
I think that during those nights that Elmore spent with Seven Squad, he watched numerous tragedies play out before his eyes, and that his observation about acting “as a man” was, perhaps, more about any individual’s incorruptibility. In fact—and I apologize for the spoilers—the final lines of dialogues given by the protagonists of both the short story, “Three Ten to Yuma” (1953) and much later, in Out of Sight (1996), even mirror that same philosophy.
Whether for good or ill, Elmore’s characters all seem to follow their own internal code that guides them, which I think added a richness to his characterizations. Plus, he seemed to have a real respect for both law enforcement and a compassion for criminals that deepened with that philosophy.
AC: You share Elmore Leonard’s reflections when he and Kurt Vonnegut were in the same issue of the Saturday Evening Post. “I would say we both still had as many as a million words to write on the way to developing our own voices or styles.” Do you believe you’ve found your voice over the past 15 years doing journalism? What about your newfound interest in biographies? Is it hard to discover your voice while reflecting on the life of another?
CK: Elmore was always very candid regarding the years of woodshedding that it took until he’d achieved a narrative “sound” that he was satisfied with—and it was a specific point that he shared with me even when I was fifteen-years-old. I never forgot that, and kept an unofficial tally on the hundreds of articles I wrote as the years passed. I’m not sure if my style had completely matured or not (I certainly hope I keep getting better) but, as Elmore had predicted, my first book was published at approximately the one-million-word mark.
What’s funny is that, I supposed, working in journalism and nonfiction liberated me, in the sense that I was able to focus not so much on characterization or plotting, but on clarity and terseness and really zoom in on those elements of the writing. I think of how director Stanley Kubrick was a still photographer before he ever picked up a movie camera; then, likewise, he worked solely in black and white until he’d mastered that. Fellow filmmaker Orson Welles claimed his films were in black and white because adding color theory and the necessary visual components would be even more complex than his movies already were—and that’s saying a lot for Welles. To bring it back, I think that working in journalism for as long as I did was something like that, or how Elmore Leonard himself used both the very basic fundamentals of copywriting to hone his knowledge of how words look on a page, or how few of them could be used for maximum effect.
I think I became drawn to writing biographies for creative and practical reasons. Aside from how much I genuinely love learning the inner creativity of people I write about, there is the very real reason that, like Elmore, I write to be read. When I pick a subject for a biography, I’m already very aware that there are other fans out there like myself who will find the research as fascinating as I do. Being able to break down and reconstruct the processes of a musician like Warren Zevon, or an author like Elmore, can only benefit other people who love their work or are artists themselves—and I love sharing that. But I really appreciate that you asked what effect that can have on my own writing style—and this applies to anyone who writes both nonfiction and fiction: being able to shift your narrative voice is a wonderful tool to have. Think of Truman Capote—whether he was writing about the fictitious Holly Golightly or the real-life killers from In Cold Blood, only a few sentences in and you knew it was still Capote.
That’s something I’m always going to be working on!
AC: Do you have a favorite piece of Leonard’s history that you discovered while compiling his biography?
CK: Yes, and I love this question! There are too many to name, but I do have my favorites. During the research, for example, I found a poem written by Allen Ginsberg for Elmore, long believed to be lost. When I was a teenager, I taped an interview with Elmore when he spoke about meeting Ginsberg at a literary event and how he was given in one and only “lesson in poetry.” I was always so curious what that exchange might have been like and, like a miracle, it was in his archive at the University of South Carolina jumbled in with some of his correspondence—right where he’d probably left it. Then, the Estate of Allen Ginsberg were generous enough to help me transcribe the poet’s words for accuracy, and include it in the book. Of course, the most exciting thing to discover was how Elmore genuinely struggled to find his unique voice during the late 1960s and early 1970s—something which many of us can relate to. During that time, however, Elmore also had some frustration with a specific film producer regarding an aborted film entitled Picket Line, leading him to actually write an entire novella-length version of the film’s first act just to make his intentions clearer to the producer. Many years later, Elmore was going to release the story in e-book format, but the plans never came to fruition; now, we found his initial plans for that release and HarperCollins is finally able to bring it out to celebrate Elmore’s centennial. Seeing fellow Elmore Leonard fans as giddy as me at the thought of Elmore back on the “new release” wall is very exciting—and I think the book is integral to seeing how his style evolved.
AC: If you have any other thoughts that you’d like to share, please do so! Thank you so much for answering my questions!
CK: If I can add one thing, I think it’s that Elmore’s own life and career can be seen as a wonderful example of how any modern author can work and grow—no matter the genre. Uncompromised, but with a clear sight on what you are trying to achieve through the writing, and how to conduct yourself behind-the-scenes. Elmore always wrote what entertained him, never doubting that others would share in his amusement, and always treated his family and publishing associates—and fellow authors—with great respect and compassion. It’s evident in his years of correspondence: he loved writing and seemed genuinely grateful for the opportunity to make his living that way, and always reminded that to the people who helped him achieve his success.
If I can add one line that sums it up for me (although it’s not on Elmore’s famous “Ten Rules” list, yet should be) it would be a quote from his 1989 novel, Killshot:
“It’s nice to be nice.”
For more interviews from The Strand Magazine, please visit: https://www.mysterycenter.com/category/interviews/
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