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My first question is about James M. Cain.
He asked me if Id read James M. Cain.
I said I hadnt since I was a kid.
So I went on vacation and read every novel of Cains I could get my hands on.
After I came back, my then-wife was going to an audition with Bob Rafelson for the movie.
I told her I wanted to get a job writing the script.
She said, Im sure hes got a writer.
I said, Tell him hes a fucking idiot if he doesnt give me the job.
So he called me up.
And I got the job.
I sit by myself every day, most days, eight hours in this little room.
It feels like either a torment or an adventure.
The only way I can still the torment or appreciate the adventure is to write it down.
Then I spent years working on an L.A. novel.
I have over a thousand pages of it that I need to boil down into something that works.
The best way to get a writer to create something is to get him to do another thing.
Is the L.A. novel also historical?No, its kind of contemporary.
I gave them both to an agent.
Earlier agents had said, No one wants this fucking book.
He said, What doyouthink?
I said, Fuck, I dunno.
He said, Write the Chicago novel.
God willing, this book will get sufficient success that Ill go on to write the other novel.
Okay, thats fair.My hero is Patrick OBrian [author ofMaster and Commander, among many other novels].
Its basically impossible to write that well.
And I read all of his books many, many times.
When you do research, all youre doing is reading books by other people who didnt do research.
You grow up in Chicago and people are talking about gangsters all the time.
Heres where Nails Mortons horse was shot; theres the Holy Name Cathedral where they shot Dion OBanion.
I went to school across the street from the garage where they had the Saint Valentines Day Massacre.
You were always aware of it because its all part of the myth.
My uncle knew Al Capone: Everyone says that.
But how many uncles can really know Capone?Of course.
I said Pancho Barnes.
Do you know who that is?
She was a very wealthy debutante in Pasadena.
They married her off to the Reverend Barnes.
She was a gunrunner.
She came back over here and came into her inheritance.
She became a champion aviator.
Then she established a little hotel up at what later became Edwards Air Force Base.
Eventually it became a hangout for fighter pilots, then it became a bordello, Happy Bottom Riding Club.
She had this fantastic life!
Will it be staged?Sure, itll be staged.
I got all sorts of stuff coming up.
I might secretly be doing a play on Broadway this summer.
Are you still attached to write a script based on Don WinslowsThe Force?I wrote it.
Where are things at with it?I wrote this great script for Jim Mangold.
He took it to the producers.
They said it was a wonderful script, but would you mind making it a little bit worse?
Thats the way the process works out here.
Youve praised Patrick OBrian, John le Carre And dont forget to mention George V. Higgins.
Right, hes one of your favorites, too.
What other crime writers do you admire?Im crazy about the Richard Stark books.
You dont do better thanThe Hunter.That book changed my life.
How old were you when you read it?Twelve?
I used to spend all day reading.
Id read four books in a day.
Everything in science fiction, all these Kick em in the balls books.
You see what the culture is committed to or has trained you to see.
Thats the world I grew up in.
The mayor was running a whorehouse, people coming day and night, cops on the street.
How much of that Chicago is still in the city today?No idea.
Im going back to do an event for the book, and Ill see my beloved stepmother.
Now the cities are beautified.
Chicago is the most beautiful city.
But its a different city.
In 1835, it was one mud hut.
*This article appears in the February 19, 2018, issue of New York Magazine.
