DONALD E. WESTLAKE

'Donald Edwin Westlake' (born July 12, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York) is a prolific American writer and novelist, with over a hundred books to his credit. He specializes in crime fiction, especially comic capers with an occasional foray into science fiction. He is a three-time Edgar Award winner, one of only two writers (the other is Joe Gores) to win Edgars in three different categories (1968, Best Novel, ''God Save the Mark''; 1990, Best Short Story, "Too Many Crooks"; 1991, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, ''The Grifters''). In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America named Westlake a Grand Master, the highest honor bestowed by the society.
He has also been an occasional contributor to science fiction fanzines such as ''Xero''.

Contents

Personal life

Pseudonyms

Writing style

Motion pictures

External links

Personal life

Westlake attended Harpur College in Binghamton, New York, and left early. He spent two years in the United States Air Force, an experience that would later influence his fiction (several of his novels' protagonists, notably John Dortmunder and the protagonist of ''361'', are ex-military men). He is married to Abigail Westlake (also known as Abby Adams Westlake and Abby Adams), a writer of nonfiction (her two published books are ''An Uncommon Scold'' and ''The Gardener's Gripe Book''). The couple lives in upstate New York. Abby Westlake is a well-regarded gardener and the Westlake garden is frequently opened for public viewing in the summer [1].

Pseudonyms

In addition to writing consistently under his own name, Westlake publishes under several pseudonyms. The best known continuing pseudonym is that of 'Richard Stark', which debuted in 1959 as a byline on several short stories published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Then, from 1962-1974, 20 novels about the relentless and remorseless professional thief Parker and his accomplices appeared and were credited to Richard Stark. "Stark" was then inactive until 1997, when Westlake once again began writing and publishing Parker novels under Stark's name.
Other Westlake psuedonyms include

★ 'John B. Allen' (one 1962 work of non-fiction);

★ 'Curt Clark' (one 1967 science-fiction novel and one 1964 short story);

★ 'Tucker Coe' (five novels from 1967-1972);

★ 'Timothy J. Culver' (one 1970 novel);

★ 'J. Morgan Cunningham' (one 1971 spoof novel);

★ 'Samuel Holt' (four novels in the mid-1980s); and

★ 'Sheldon Lord' (with Lawrence Block), 'Allan Marshall', and 'Edwin West' (several novels in the late 1950s/early 1960s)
Currently, Westlake publishes both serious and comic novels under his own name, and Parker novels under Stark's name. No other pen-names are known to be currently used by Westlake, nor has he been known to have used any since the "Samuel Holt" novels of the 1980s.

Writing style

Donald Westlake is known for the great ingenuity of his plots and the audacity of his gimmicks. His writing and dialogue are lively. His main characters are fully rounded, believable, and clever. Westlake's most famous characters include the hard-boiled criminal Parker (appearing in fiction under the Richard Stark pseudonym) and Parker's comic flip-side John Dortmunder, the hard-luck criminal genius who originally began as Parker getting caught in a comic situation in the 1970 novel ''The Hot Rock''.
Most of Donald Westlake's novels are set in New York City. In each of the Dortmunder novels, there is typically a detailed shortcut somewhere through the city.

Motion pictures

Several of Westlake's novels have been made into motion pictures, including ''Point Blank'' in 1967 with Lee Marvin, ''The Hot Rock'' in 1972 with Robert Redford, ''Cops and Robbers'' (1973), ''Bank Shot'' (1974) with George C. Scott, ''Jimmy the Kid'' (1979) with Gary Coleman, ''Payback'' (1999), a second film made from the first Parker novel, with Mel Gibson, and ''What's the Worst That Could Happen?'' (2001) with Martin Lawrence. Costa-Gavras adapted ''The Axe'' for the European screen in 2005, to great critical and public acclaim. Entitled ''Le Couperet'', the film takes place in France and Belgium rather than the novel's setting of New England.
Westlake is himself a screenwriter. His script for ''The Grifters,'' adapted from the novel by Jim Thompson, was nominated for an Academy Award. Westlake also wrote the original screenplay ''The Stepfather'', the film of which was sufficiently popular to receive two sequels and a forthcoming remake (projects in which Westlake was not involved).

External links

★ Official webpage

★ Web site devoted to the Parker novels written as Richard Stark

★ Better bibliography

★ Annotated booklist

★ 1990 Audio Interview with Donald Westlake by Don Swaim